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Archive for the ‘Business Advice’ Category

Tips For Boosting Employee Retention in A Post-Pandemic World

Posted by Emily Ridley

The covid-19 pandemic has changed the way the world works in so many different ways. Covid has changed the way we travel, the way we socialise and one of the biggest changes is the rise in popularity of flexible working options for employees.

Now that more people are working from home and ultimately the employee has more power in a post-covid world when compared to before covid. As a result of this employers are having trouble retaining some of their most valuable employees. Here are some tips to help employers boost employee retention in a post covid world.

Understand The Importance of Having Flexible Working As An Option For Your Employees

Although most people are able to return to the office now if they want to, there is also a large number of employees who are resisting the everyday commute becoming the norm again. A survey showed that 95 percent of workers say they prefer working from home in some capacity. This illustrates that there is a clear expectation for flexible work arrangements to continue post covid-19.

Furthermore, 62 percent of employees say they wouldn’t even consider a new employer who doesn’t have a flexible working policy. 81 percent of people surveyed said that a company that allows for flexible working is really important to them when looking at future roles. 

Offer Your Employees Practical Support

Navigating the post-covid world and negotiating a hybrid working balance that is beneficial to both employers and employees is now an important consideration for all businesses. Those who don’t support staff in their desire to maintain a flexible work situation will find themselves at risk of losing some of their most talented employees. 

However, just agreeing to your employees working flexibly isn’t enough; it’s about supporting them to work effectively and productively from anywhere. Research shows that both employers and employees get the best out of hybrid working when their home office reflects the ergonomics of a traditional office environment. 

Be A Leader for Your Employees Not a Boss

Very few people want to be leaders, but everyone wants to be the boss. Remember, though, that people follow leaders, while they abandon bosses. A boss is a dime a dozen while leaders are rare.

It is important to make sure you have a clear direction towards the future. Good leaders let employees know where the company is headed. Bosses don’t share information and leave employees wondering if there’s good or bad coming down the pipe and if they should be concerned.

A leader also believes in the importance of people. A great leader considers employees their most important asset. Bosses are more focused on numbers.

A great leader also Inspires confidence in his employees. Good leaders make employees feel confident about their ability to lead them to a good place. Bosses on the other hand have a tendency to inspire passive-aggressive frustration as employees question the decisions that have been made that have affected them negatively.

Realise That Counteroffers Don’t Always Lead To Retention

Attempts made by businesses trying to retain employees by making a counteroffer are falling short. Recently published research has discovered that of the 50 percent who do accept the counteroffer will resign from their position of employment within the next 12 months.

According to the research, 82 percent of business leaders surveyed are concerned about retaining employees in 2021. 

To fight the issue, many are finding themselves extending counteroffers in an attempt to retain employees. Despite this, 52 percent of employees who accept a counteroffer leave in a year or less. Of these employees who leave one in five leaves in less than six months.

Counteroffers are more often a tool to assist the employer. Particularly in a competitive market, it can be tempting to make counteroffers in order to retain institutional knowledge and avoid the resource-intensive exercise of recruiting, onboarding and training a new employee.

The fact that a counteroffer is designed as a tool for the employer, rather than the employee, is the major reasons why counteroffers are an ineffective retention strategy.

Although offering a salary increase may seem like a cost-saving initiative, a counteroffer doesn’t necessarily advance the career of the employee, so in most cases, the employer is still left with a dissatisfied employee who was motivated to leave the organisation in the first place.

Rather than being reliant on reactive counteroffers to address staff retention, business should be looking at their existing retention strategies as a proactive mechanism to ensure employees feel satisfied, valued, and therefore less likely to court competing offers.

Some more effective strategies could include conducting regular salary reviews to ensure their compensation is competitive, establishing clear career paths with individual employees to help their progression and reduce the appeal of a competing title change, and offer flexible working arrangements to support employee work/life balance.

How To Improve The Way You Communicate With Your Customers On Social Media

Posted by siteadmin22

Social media is one of the best ways to remain in constant contact with your customers. Having a strong presence on social media allows you to humanise your business and be super accessible at times when your customers need answers to any urgent enquires, they have.

Here are some tips to improve the way you communicate with your customers on social media platforms.

Respond Quickly to Customers So They Know You Care

By listening and responding to your customers messages sent via social media quickly, it shows them that you care. A recent study showed that 32 percent of customers expect a response from a company online within 30 minutes of sending the message hour. Another study showed that unhappy customers are more likely to “call you out” on social media channels. The research found 70 percent of customers are now willing to go on social media to raise awareness of issues.

Social media platforms are very public. By responding quickly and helpfully to your customers messages can lead to a huge big boost for your brand. By resolving customer complaints out in the open, you can even transform some sceptics into brand advocates.

Some customers are even willing to pay more in the future to brands who respond to them quickly. A report compiled by Twitter found that customers who got fast responses from airlines within 6 minutes, to be exact were happy to spend about $20 extra on each fare with them in the future.

The biggest dilemma most businesses experience is having enough time to monitor all of their social platforms so customers don’t feel neglected.

Make Sure That All Your Messages Have A Personalised Tone

The type of content you post on your social media accounts can act as a gateway for customers to connect. However, it’s important to put a face or a name to any communications coming from the account. Not only can adding a name to any replies make conversations more personable, but it also shows your customers that they’re talking to a real-life human.

All you need to do is add in the customer’s name to your replies, and sign-off using our own.

Some tips to remember when personalizing communications on social channels are to always address the customer using their first name, end any comments or Tweets with either your name, initials, or the company name. It is also important to remain professional and friendly since social media communications are in the public space and anybody can see the comments you post.

Ask For Reviews and Make Sure You Respond to Them

Facebook pages provide the perfect opportunities for customers to rate a business’s product or service. This means you get another place to collect good reviews or negative ones.

What you need to watch out for when you choose to open up your company Facebook page, however, is negative reviews from disgruntled customers. These are inevitable, and the way you respond to them can either totally turn the situation around, or make it much worse.

Whenever you receive feedback, it is important to make sure you respond in a professional manner. It is also important to make sure you explain your side of the story whenever you are the recipient of a negative comment. The general public can read any bad comments that are written and it is essential to make sure you defend the reputation of your business. Whenever you receive post reviews make sure you thank them for their kind words and tell them that you look forward to seeing them in store next time, they visit your store or business.

Don’t Make Everything Post You Make About Your Business

Social media platforms can definitely help boost your brand’s messaging and products. However, that doesn’t mean every post and interaction you have with your customers’ needs to be about your products. Instead, think of your social media platforms as a way to connect with your customers and target audience about topics they’re interested in.

Whether it’s a cute picture of a dog, an inspirational article or something your brand is doing to help the community, social media posts that aren’t about your business can help you become more relatable and less salesy.

Offer Rewards and Host Competitions for Your Customers

Most people go on social media for really 3 main things: to see something fun or funny, to communicate, or to complain. To give your customers something fun to do on social media you should try hosting a contest for your audience or customers.

Not only are online competitions and contests fun, but they also show your customers that you appreciate them. On top of that, contests also get some buzz going for your brand. The more excited your customers are about a giveaway, the more likely they are to shout about it on their own social channels and bring new customers your way.

Important Things to Consider Before You Launch a New Business

Posted by Emily Ridley

Launching a new business can overwhelming and is full of risks. It takes a lot more than just a great idea to launch a successful business, you need to surround with a good team, you need a good level of finances, a savvy marketing plan and so much more. Here is a list of important things to consider before you launch your new business.

What Problem Are You Trying to Solve and Who Is Your Target Audience?

For a business idea or product to be valuable it must help people in a way that they are currently not being helped. Asking yourself what problem can your product or service solve is essential to achieving business success.

It would be a good idea to undertake some research into what challenges people are facing and find one that is common, unsolved and which you could provide a profitable solution for. You also need to put yourself into the mindset of someone who refuses to accept the status quo and has an ambition of making the world a better place

If you already have a product or service idea, do some research to make sure it solves an existing problem.

Do Some Research and Figure Out Who Is Your Target Audience

It is crucial for you to figure out who the main competitors are within your niche? It doesn’t matter as much if you are entering a saturated marketplace if you have a established a strong purpose and a unique selling point that aims to solve a problem that people are begging to be solved.

When undertaking research for your business idea make sure you, search for communities of consumers relating to your area. What are the main pain points consumers want solving that you could provide solutions for?

Take into consideration factors such as; age, gender, social economic status and any hobbies and interests your target audience predominately have.

Also take into consider any factors such as how they communicate. Are they all on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or is email the best way to keep in contact with them?

In terms of geography, it would be wise to ask yourself what areas of the world does your ideal customer live in? Are you targeting audiences in a specific location like an estate agent might be, or is your audience spread around the world across a large variety of different cultures and time zones?

Create A Strong Business Plan and Strong Marketing Campaign

This may seem like an obvious thing to do but it’s often overlooked. Although it’s unlikely that your business will follow the exact path outlined in your business plan, it provides a way to focus your mind, come up with concrete goals to shoot for, and plan your finances in advance. This is also a great way to secure investment by showing potential funders that you know exactly what you’re doing.

Ask yourself what are your goals for the first few years and what do you hope to achieve within a certain timeframe?

Ask yourself what is your budget and how much money can you afford to spend on things such as; marketing and to hire new staff?

No matter how good your idea is, you’re going to need to run a marketing campaign that is highly impactful to keep new leads coming in, raise brand awareness, and advertise your services.

Do research into the main advertising mediums for your niche, what works for your industry and what marketing tactics doesn’t. Ask questions such as, are short term or long term marketing campaigns the way to go?

Once you know the kind of campaigns you are going to run, you should investigate the cost of running them and scope out the agencies and platforms that will help you get your campaigns off the ground.

Have Your Finances Organised

You need to have a realistic expectation of how much your business will cost and have 100 percent certainty that you know where that money is going to come from.

Don’t waste your time starting a new business if you don’t have the money to sustain it. Build up reserves of cash wherever possible. If you already have a regular flow of income, set aside some of it for contingencies; you never know when you’ll be bit by a surprise bill, have a major client drop out, or have a supplier raise their prices on you.

Have A Backup Plan in Case Your Business Fails to Succeed

In the unfortunate event where your business fails you don’t want to end up stuck with a warehouse full of products that you are unable to sell or a mountain of debts you can’t pay off. Before you start your business, you should make the sensible decisions to ask yourself “if everything goes wrong and my business fails, what’s the worse that will happen?”

You need to consider this question very seriously and know what the honest answer is. Maybe you can sell off your capital assets so that you’re not left with a massive financial loss. This is where it’s important you didn’t tell your boss to shove it before going solo, because you may need to ask for your old job back if things don’t work out.

Starting a business involves a serious amount of risk but, in many ways, it’s never been easier to do so. Many new businesses begin lives as internet-based projects until they have the capital to expand and today there are more ways to advertise your services than ever before.

How Your Small Business Can Become More Eco-Friendly

Posted by Emily Ridley

In recent years customers have become more conscious about the impact their purchases are having on the environment. If you are the owner of a small business, it is highly recommended that you evaluate the impact your business methods are having on the environment. By making any effort to do this your customers will be impressed and it will make you appear more trustworthy and respectable.

Here are some tips to help your business become more eco-friendly.

Use More Sustainable Products

The items companies purchase to ensure their workplaces function well be it printer paper, cleaning products or to-go containers can be toxic to the environment due to the processes that go into making them. 

For all those paper items commonly used, such as rolls of toilet paper and reams of printer paper, office managers can look for labelling that says it is made from post or pre-consumer waste. Recycled products such as these maintain a circular economy and reduce overall waste.

For cleaning products, there is a whole cottage industry of green cleaners that don’t include toxic chemicals, opting instead for natural ingredients that work just as well. Using these products keeps toxic ingredients out of the streams and their waste out of landfills. 

Write a sustainability page or policy

A brilliant way to share your sustainability values and efforts with both your customers and your staff is to create a sustainability policy or page and have it published on your website.

If you’re a business with many staff, a policy outlining the goals and steps to becoming more sustainable will help make sure that everyone who works at your organisation is on the same page. Your policy can literally be “Our organisation is aspiring to become eco-friendlier, here are the actions everyone in the business is required to take and the values that need to be considered when making future decisions within our business.”

If your business has a website, adding a sustainability page will help outline your values for your customers and explain what steps you’re taking to become a more conscious business.

This page can consist of a list of steps you’re both currently doing, and a list of steps your organisation is moving towards. Sustainability can be a work in progress, too as long as you’re moving in the right direction. If you don’t wish to have a whole page about your sustainability police, you can simply add a blurb or paragraph to your “About page”, “Values page” or even a blog or a post on your social media platforms.

Offer Your Employees the Opportunity to Work Remotely

Because we live in a world where it is possible for more work to be completed online, there is less need for people to be in a physical office. Remote work has taken off over the past few years, allowing employees to have work-life flexibility and substantially reducing their time spent commuting. 

Working from home has become a hugely popular lifestyle for millions of employees around the world during the covid-19 pandemic. By maintaining and expanding the number of employees working from home, emissions from commutes are greatly reduced. The less cars on the road the less emissions.

Give Your Staff Public Transport Commuter Benefits

When employees do need to be in the office, how their commute contributes to greenhouse gas emissions still can be influenced. 

Public transportation (buses, trains, vanpools) is the greenest way to commute, and companies can encourage employees to take advantage of these transport options.

Small businesses can provide employees with public transit benefits that help the environment, either directly or through their human resources (HR) software. 

To provide these benefits directly, many city transit agencies offer subsidized passes for businesses. Alternately, these benefits may be available to add through HR software that centralizes all benefit programs.

Encourage Your Employees and Customers to Make Environmentally Friendly Purchases

Many car companies are encouraging their employees to go electric when choosing a new car. Many businesses are incentivising employees to buy an electric car by providing them with a monthly voucher covering a portion of their lease or finance payment. Some businesses are encouraging carpooling to and from the office. Some businesses have switched to all LED lighting in their offices and have installed solar panels to offset their energy usage.

How To Ask for And Receive Customer Feedback to Improve Your Business

Posted by Emily Ridley

Emerge Advisory