FEATURED POST OF THE WEEK

Our long-form article of the week. You can always view the current and past featured posts on Empower’s blog.

Streamline operations, attract and retain top talent: a win-win for small businesses

A persistent market challenge: talent acquisition and retention

Since I started to explore launching Empower, I’ve spoken with various business owners to understand their goals and challenges. One theme persistently surfaces in each discussion: the struggle to acquire and retain talented employees.  

In today’s tight labor market, business owners grapple with sourcing specialized skill sets and fostering an environment for long-term retention. This is particularly acute for small businesses unable to offer competitive benefits or ones constrained by the need to have employees onsite full-time, versus offering hybrid or remote options many employees now prefer.  

Real insights from business owners:

• A specialty apparel brand owner expressed that last year he experienced more challenges with employee retention than ever. 

• The founder of an online coaching business mentioned how much work he faced when expanding from a two-person operation to more employees. There was significant time and thought required to formalize onboarding, build scalable systems and implement training.

• The owner of a non-profit highlighted the high operational costs and disruption that emerged with the turnover of key personnel. 

Supporting data: labor market challenges for small businesses

The June NFIB Jobs Report data also highlights the challenge Main Street businesses face with filling open positions.

• 85% of owners who hired or tried to hire in June reported few or no qualified applicants. 

• 37% of small business owners indicated they had open positions for which they’ve been unable to hire. 

• 19% of small business owners indicated labor quality was their top operational challenge. 

The costs to talent challenges and a call to action

These obstacles are not just inconvenient, they’re also costly. This is particularly true for small businesses given the heavier reliance on each employee and limited resources. Talent disruptions can also lead to downstream impacts on the customer experience with the brand, potentially putting revenue and reputation at risk.  

A U.S. Chamber of Commerce report from December posed a critical question reflecting on this issue and another challenge of controlling costs: 

This reflects the dual challenge of retaining critical employees and expanding the business without proportionally increasing employee expenses. 

Operational excellence: a strategic solution to both talent and cost challenges

While an immediate inclination may be to think of talent acquisition and management as areas for only Human Resources (HR) to fix, that’s not necessarily the case. Many small businesses don’t have HR departments and I would argue that strong business foundations and systems can play a meaningful role here – they can unlock improved employee satisfaction and enable you to do more with the same or fewer people resources. 

By conducting a deep analysis of how a business functions, understanding strategic goals and evaluating the employee experience, there are many ways to build a stronger, committed talent base. 

Here are a few examples to highlight: 

• Identify Training Opportunities: A thorough analysis might bring to light opportunities to more consistently train employees in the skills necessary to succeed in their roles. Upskilling can drive more productivity per employee and translate into a better customer experience.

• Improve Systems and Tools: Identifying inefficient processes or gaps in various parts of the business allows you to take action, streamline and augment certain activities with automation. This frees time and allows you and your employees to focus on more strategic activities. 

• Improve Employee Engagement: The right organizational structures empower employees to excel in their jobs and enable the business to run more smoothly. Coupled with professional development opportunities, this can lead to a more dedicated workforce that’s also bought into your vision. 

If these challenges resonate with you and you’re looking for actionable solutions, Empower can assist. Empower collaborates with business owners to achieve operational excellence by examining the existing business structure, identifying areas of opportunity and partnering on solutions. We take a holistic approach and tailor solutions to align value based on client needs.

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WEEKLY DOSE OF EMPOWERMENT

The weekly dose of Empowerment is meant to provide one weekly tip that’s both practical and approachable, to help drive incremental improvement to your day-to-day. We’re always open to your contributions as well. If you would like to submit a tip to be shared with the Empower community in a future newsletter, please reach out at [email protected] with the subject line “Weekly Dose of Empowerment Submission.”

Make every meeting count

Raise a virtual hand 🙋‍♀️ if you’ve never attended a poorly run meeting.

I obviously can’t see behind your screens, but I’ll wager no one reading this raised their hand. We’ve all been there at some point in our professional lives.

Here are three scenarios you’ve likely encountered:

• You join a meeting and have no idea what it’s about.

• You spend two hours in a meeting circling on topics but never land on a decision or next steps.

• You try to ask the meeting organizer ahead of time for the meeting agenda and your role, but you never receive a reply.

A study this year by Reclaim.ai indicated the average annual cost of meetings per employee was nearly $30,000. Another article from Notta cited a statistic that stated only 30% of meetings are productive.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

While you can’t control everyone’s meeting habits, you can certainly control yours and you can strongly influence how meetings are run on your team and across your company.

The next time you organize a meeting, do these five things to make sure it’s a good use of time:

• Define a clear objective and agenda in the meeting invite: In the description of the calendar invite, include a clear goal and specific agenda items you plan to cover. If you have an ask of the participants, it’s helpful to include those details as well. BONUS: If you want participants to show up thoroughly prepared to make key decisions, send prep materials 48 hours in advance for people to review.

• Stay on track: Focus the conversation on the agenda topics. Create an environment where people feel comfortable contributing, but if the discussion veers off course, gently steer it back in the right direction.

• Start and end on time: Set a professional tone and respect participants’ time by beginning and ending the meeting as scheduled.

• Follow up and summarize action items: If you’re running the meeting, take the initiative to circulate a summary of the key discussion points, decisions and action items (with owners and deadlines assigned). Not only does this keep everyone informed and aligned, but it also reinforces accountability.

• Be considerate: Ask people when they’re available for a meeting. If you have access to participants’ calendars and you notice someone with a conflict, do the right thing and reach out to see if their schedule is flexible. Don’t just double-book them. When you make assumptions, you’re communicating other people’s time isn’t valuable.

P.S. - If you lead a team or company, spread these best practices so everyone can benefit from better meetings.

P.P.S. - Be bold. The next time you receive a meeting invite and there’s no clear agenda, objective or decision to make, politely write back and say you won’t attend the meeting unless you have this information.

JESSICA’S READ, OR LISTEN, PICK OF THE WEEK

A little something that got my gears turning this week and might pique your interest as well!

From The Wall Street Journal: How Gen Z is Becoming the Toolbelt Generation

TL;DR

This article is from a couple of months ago, but it’s a topic I’ve recently seen surfacing in multiple places. The gist is that more young professionals are opting for trade professions instead of pursuing a traditional college path. Vocational training enrollment is increasing, while trends for college head the other direction.

Gen Z finds the prospect of not sitting in front of screens all day, a secure job track and steadily growing earnings appealing. There’s also a strong sense of accomplishment that follows building physical things. When it comes to the earnings component, the article cites that the median pay for new construction hires has now exceeded that of new professional services and information sector hires for the fourth year in a row.

The trend presented here and the Silver Tsunami dynamics I briefly introduced in Edition 006 immediately make me think about potential new business opportunities. I wonder what new companies in these skilled trade verticals will emerge in the coming years, or existing ones that may become stronger, from this renewed interest and new, young talent.

JUST FOR FUN

Really, this section is just for fun. Who knows what will be in store each week?

Who thinks we’ve taken Goldfish too far with this one?

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If you want to learn more about Empower’s offerings or methodology, reach out to discuss how we can support your goals. 

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