Small businesses can’t match the paychecks that big corporations dangle in front of job candidates, but they don’t always have to. There are many different ways to entice the best candidates that money can’t buy and which smaller employers are uniquely positioned to activate. This article gives eight practical, low-cost strategies owners can use to attract and keep great people.
For South African business owners, selling to your employees can offer something a traditional buyer often cannot: a lasting legacy. Through employee share ownership schemes, broad-based trusts and B-BBEE ownership structures, founders can reward loyal staff, preserve their company’s culture and create a structured exit. Success, however, depends on getting the financial, tax and legal foundations right. Here’s how to do it.
Most business owners think their personal will has the business covered too, but that’s usually not the case. The term “business will” refers colloquially to a specialised directive, such as a shareholder’s agreement, a buy-and-sell agreement or a succession plan, that gives guidance on what should happen to your business when you (or other partners or shareholders) are no longer there. Without a regularly updated “business will”, the business you spent decades building can unravel in months.
Automation once promised a cleaner, leaner future with lower costs, faster service and fewer repetitive tasks. Yet some businesses are now reversing course and humans are being returned to jobs only recently given to software. Discover why this is happening, and just how automation might be hurting your business.
Every business leader, from the corner office to the corner store, has a story they wish they could rewrite. A product launched too early, a hire made too hastily, a pivot that led off a cliff. Despite this, bad business decisions are not a sign of a bad leader, they are simply a sign that a leader is human. The real measure of a leader is not whether they stumble, but how they recover. Here is what the evidence says you should do when you make a mistake.
As cloud-based software delivery has lowered the barrier to adoption, many companies are starting to lose track of the number of software subscriptions they have. This phenomenon is known as “SaaS creep” (SaaS stands for Software as a Service) and research suggests that the problem is considerably larger than most leaders recognise. The financial consequences are compounding, and, for organisations without formal oversight, almost entirely invisible.
Millennials and Gen Z – two generations raised on social media, shaped by climate anxiety, and equipped with instant access to information – are now rewriting the rules of consumer behaviour. For these switched-on generations, purchases are a statement of identity. Brands that stand for environmental stewardship, fair labour, and community investment are winning a market share that older marketing models never anticipated. Here’s how you can make this trend work for you.
Big businesses have big budgets, big teams, and big safety nets. Small businesses have none of these things … And at times this can be to their advantage. The mistake many small business owners make is looking up towards their conglomerate competition and trying to replicate what they see. In fact, the playbook that works for a multinational can actually destroy smaller operations. This article explains why.
Particularly in volatile economic times like these, effective budgeting is a critical driver of business success. This is because a budget enables sustainable growth by aligning financial resources with strategic business goals.
We can assist you to create well-structured budgets that provide a roadmap for navigating the ongoing market ups and downs, while maintaining cashflow and identifying opportunities for investment.
Personal crises, such as bereavement, divorce, illness, and mental health challenges, are a reality of life, and how you respond when your employee is struggling says everything about you as a leader.
Handle the situation badly and you risk losing a good person. Handle it well and you’ll not only be doing the right thing, but you could also forge one of the most loyal working relationships of your career.