Have you got bad business habits?

We’ve all got them. Those bad business habits that become part of the furniture of how we act, work and behave. With the New Year, what better time to break these habits and replace them with healthier ones?

Emailing
Email won’t be going anywhere soon, despite what people want you to believe But could it become less important in your business? Sales of SaaS solutions to online communication within workplaces are growing. The benefits? Many users say that they are no longer using long email threads, file & document sharing is easier and project information is stored in one, easily accessible area. The levels of sophistication vary but there are ways to access GANTT charts, timelines, chat functions and to pass ownership between team members. If you’re still using email, maybe it’s time to make a change?

Rewarding the same old things
Whether you focus on a bonus for sales, or incentives for activity, it’s time to take a look at what you value in your company. With wellness incentives on the rise, for example, could this be a new initiative that you use to enhance wellbeing in the business? Rewards only work when they are visible, understood and achievable, so now might be the time to review what you’ve always done and see if your initiatives could be spruced up.

Saving the tough feedback for the exit interview
Whatever your role in the business, you’ll know that it’s exit interview time when people really start to tell you the home truths about your business! If your culture doesn’t incentivise feedback in the right place and the right time, then you could be missing out on a wealth of potential information. This doesn’t have to just focus on people’s grumbles about the lack of stationary- why not make a real drive to ask about improvements to the business processes, product or service?

Rigid inflexible working
Reports have shown that people value flexible working over any other benefit. As the saying goes ‘if you can’t trust people to work from home – why hire them in the first place?’. Flexible working might mean flexy hours in the old sesnse, or moving to a ‘digital nomad’ environment like Buffer, who removed any office presence. Take a look at the tech changes and costs you’d need to fully make a switch to a new way of working, and weight up the recruitment fees and overall HR and recruiting costs against these figures.

Scrimping on fringe benefits.
A study by Fidelity Investments has shown in the USA on average employers spend about $700 per head on wellness incentives. If this stat makes you gulp, consider the that world of work is changing. Many studies point to putting strict percentages of revenue/ salary into benefits and similar initiatives to increase motivation and retention. It might be time to review your current plan against other leaders in your sector and see how you stack up.