Decision makers have established a level of success but there’s always room for improvement. By examining your strengths and weaknesses, you can give your best to your business.
Concentrating on your strengths means you can spend time doing what you do best. But identifying weaknesses is equally important – not only so you can delegate tasks – but so you can develop your own skills.
Creating a personal development plan helps identify areas for improvement. The process defines a list of structured, realistic and achievable learning objectives that deliver measurable value to you and your business. Implementing personal development plans for your employees could also help you delegate. A motivated employee who wants a new challenge may welcome the prospect of inheriting some of your responsibility.
Losing control can be difficult but delegation can make your business stronger. Others may do things differently, but their approach might be better. Building a team you can trust, communicating with that team effectively, and giving them your support can bring out the best in your people.
How you manage your development and what you choose to delegate are matters for your own judgement. But once in a while it doesn’t hurt to think about who you are, what you are good at, and what you want to do with your time.
More info:
Skills and training for directors and owners
Interactive tool – Create a personal development plan
Following a highly successful pilot programme, Business Link is running another series of workshops aimed at owner/managers of established small and medium sized enterprises.
The half-day workshops have been designed to provide a range of cost-effective, easy to implement business tools, as well as offering a deeper insight into issues affecting all businesses.
Our workshops are run in small groups to ensure that there is plenty of time for you to discuss individual issues. The workshops are run in the morning and include a buffet lunch. (There are certain restrictions, details of which can be found in the pdf download).
Workshop details:
Marketing Toolbox
Public Relations to promote your business
Understanding Finance
A marketing strategy combines a series of tactics that aim to concentrate resources on the greatest opportunities for your business. Usually the foundation of a marketing plan, a marketing strategy can help achieve competitive advantage and ensure your business achieves its objectives.
Creating a marketing strategy helps you focus on what matters – your customers, and your business.
The process helps you understand your customers and their needs. By defining how your business can fulfil these needs better than the competition, you can build customer loyalty and attract new customers. Also critical to any marketing strategy is an appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of your business, its competitors, and a more general awareness of your business environment.
It’s critical that your marketing strategy remains dynamic and interactive because nothing stays the same. Customer needs may change, or the tactics you employ to deliver your strategy may force your competitors to react. An appreciation of a marketing strategy as an interactive dynamic process – and not a static document – is critical for success.
More info:
Create your marketing strategy, Top Tips
Download – Create your marketing strategy, Complete guide
Am I liable for my employees’ in-car mobile phone use?
The Department for Transport website THINK! Road Safety makes the rules clear:
“It is an offence to cause or permit the use of a hand-held mobile phone when driving. It is also an offence to cause or permit a driver not to have proper control of a vehicle.”
Source – www.thinkroadsafety.gov.uk/campaigns/mobilephones.htm
Research by YouGov for communications company Jabra suggests one in three small to medium sized companies do not have a clear policy on mobile phone use. Under the new regulations, this lack of clarity from employers could leave them open to prosecution.
More info: Set up employment policies for your business
What motivates staff?
Recent surveys suggest job satisfaction and a challenge are key motivating factors for employees.
A survey carried out by recruitment specialist Brook Street found 16 per cent of respondents are motivated by a challenge, 37 per cent by job satisfaction. In the IT industry, a major study by ComputerWeekly.com also found it’s “not how much they earn, but how challenging their job is that counts”.
The Business Link guide “Lead and motivate your staff” argues that whilst job satisfaction depends partly on tangible reward, company culture is equally important.
More info: Lead and motivate your staff
What’s the difference between a contract and a written statement of employment?
Contracts of employment are legally binding whether they are written, oral or implied. Written contracts are often prepared following an oral agreement to avoid the potential for subsequent dispute.
A written statement of employment is not a contract, but can be used as evidence of an employee’s terms in the case of dispute or grievance. Employers are usually required to give employees a written statement of employment within 2 months.
More info:
The employment contract
Interactive tool – Create a written statement of employment for your workers
A healthy business isn’t just about profits – that’s like saying a body builder is healthy just because he’s got big muscles.
Even if your business appears healthy from the outside it’s useful to dig a little deeper. Some simple steps can help identify problems before they arise, and may expose weaknesses you can overcome to make your business more robust.
Considerations such as how many staff you employ, your level of overheads or the way you organise your finances could provide clues on the health of your business. Simple analysis of your customer base and sales figures might also expose weaknesses or identify areas where you can improve efficiency.
Assessing the health of your business is about asking questions. If you don’t like the answers, dig deeper to pinpoint problems and develop solutions that measurably strengthen your business.
Taking a proactive stance to tackle every issue head-on builds a truly robust business capable of shrugging off even the most vicious bugs.
More info: Interactive Tool – Assess the health of your business