The UK’s current business landscape is a peculiar one; employment rates are stable, but inflation is rising ever higher. While there is fertile ground for businesses to growth, unique financial pressures and new challenges from supply shortages to fuel price increases spell difficulty for the smaller business. Naturally, in times of near-recession, businesses tend to look inward – what changes can a business make to improve their bottom line?
Employee Training
First and foremost, you should seek to address any shortcomings on an internal basis. Your staff are the most important part of your operation, and ensuring they are working as efficiently and effectively as possible can maximise your business’ efficacy.
Not only does training an employee well reduce the incidences of costly mistakes, whether in administration or production, but it can also improve productivity overall. Regular training and refresher courses will keep your staff on-task, while a robust onboarding process can have new employees operating at maximum efficacy straight out of the gate.
Minimising Risk
Training is also profoundly important to the mitigation of risk, specifically with regard to health and safety in the workplace. There is a legal duty in the UK for employers to ensure the health and safety of their workers, but exceeding legal guidelines with a comprehensive approach to workplace safety can minimise accidents – minimising associated costs, from insurance pay-outs to staff shortages due to recovery.
Aside from training, personal protective equipment is a key component to any workplace safety programme. PPE is crucial for safety in construction and manufacturing, with gloves, hard hats and eye protection a must in active worksites; equipment must also be provided for the safe handling of dangerous materials, such as corrosive cleaning equipment.
Controlling Overheads
There are numerous operational expenses attached to the running of a business, and keeping a keen eye on them is a fundamental measure for maximising profit margins. This decade has presented unique challenges to businesses both small and large, with supply chain issues and rising energy costs coalescing to inflate business overheads and frustrate business operation.
Switching suppliers and distributors can often yield a better deal for you, whether through seeking cheaper wholesale products or making use of new-customer discounts. Switching to sustainable energy sources, and minimising reliance on fossil fuels, can help reduce the impact of rising fuel costs on your bottom line.
Retaining Customers
Lastly, much of a business’ focus is trained on the sales funnel, and the induction of new customers. But a business that doesn’t properly reckon with retaining those customers is losing a valuable, reliable income stream. Providing high-quality customer service is a key way to lower customer churn rates overall, while incentive marketing endeavours through mailing lists and social media posts can help to keep customers on board for exclusive discounts – and even bring new customers in organically.
