Recently, whenever I’ve spoken to Business Owners, it would
seem there has been a general increase in business confidence; indeed, the vast
majority of our clients are really busy, which is great news.
This got me thinking, when I was out walking the dog on Sunday afternoon, how for the past five years or so businesses have been concentrating on survival, but now need to shift their thinking again.
When the recession hit the UK it took out businesses both large and small, and over the past few years there has been a steady trickle of casualties to recession; you don’t need me to remind you!
Business owners had to change their way of thinking in order to survive. For many, long term plans became a thing of the past, and all efforts were concentrated on short term survival, or ‘sustainability’. In HR terms, this meant restructuring, reducing terms and conditions, redundancies. It also meant changing the culture of organisations and the way they do things, and encouraging staff to work more flexibly; hence the rise of zero hour contracts.
However, my thought is this; with the economy now showing signs of increasing improvement, business confidence is clearly on its way up. This means there needs to be a further shift in thinking and planning; for the past five years we’ve been concentrating on surviving the worst recession in decades, but now is the time to stabilise our businesses and make long term plans for growth.
We have already seen this start to happen. There are potential new opportunities on the horizon, and businesses need to differentiate themselves from their competitors more than ever to stand out from the crowd. From the HR perspective, Companies are starting to look at performance more closely, with a view to improving or adding to skills and competence levels (which in themselves are changing and becoming more customer focussed), designing and implementing fit for purpose appraisal systems and measuring output. The reason for this? Performance intelligence. If you know where the starting blocks are, you can build on these which will in turn support business growth.
So, back to my thought; sustainability or stability for growth. Sustainability is about ‘levelling off’ or ‘survival’, while stability for growth is about getting your house in order, on all fronts, so you are ready for implementing your plan for growth. Therefore business owners/leaders need to shift their thinking or their approach to their business if they are going to stabilise and grow in the future.
And all this from an hour’s walk on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
This got me thinking, when I was out walking the dog on Sunday afternoon, how for the past five years or so businesses have been concentrating on survival, but now need to shift their thinking again.
When the recession hit the UK it took out businesses both large and small, and over the past few years there has been a steady trickle of casualties to recession; you don’t need me to remind you!
Business owners had to change their way of thinking in order to survive. For many, long term plans became a thing of the past, and all efforts were concentrated on short term survival, or ‘sustainability’. In HR terms, this meant restructuring, reducing terms and conditions, redundancies. It also meant changing the culture of organisations and the way they do things, and encouraging staff to work more flexibly; hence the rise of zero hour contracts.
However, my thought is this; with the economy now showing signs of increasing improvement, business confidence is clearly on its way up. This means there needs to be a further shift in thinking and planning; for the past five years we’ve been concentrating on surviving the worst recession in decades, but now is the time to stabilise our businesses and make long term plans for growth.
We have already seen this start to happen. There are potential new opportunities on the horizon, and businesses need to differentiate themselves from their competitors more than ever to stand out from the crowd. From the HR perspective, Companies are starting to look at performance more closely, with a view to improving or adding to skills and competence levels (which in themselves are changing and becoming more customer focussed), designing and implementing fit for purpose appraisal systems and measuring output. The reason for this? Performance intelligence. If you know where the starting blocks are, you can build on these which will in turn support business growth.
So, back to my thought; sustainability or stability for growth. Sustainability is about ‘levelling off’ or ‘survival’, while stability for growth is about getting your house in order, on all fronts, so you are ready for implementing your plan for growth. Therefore business owners/leaders need to shift their thinking or their approach to their business if they are going to stabilise and grow in the future.
And all this from an hour’s walk on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
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