Yesterday, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt presented his second Autumn Statement, but with a very different tone to the gloomy announcements made this time last year. The Chancellor announced initiatives with a massive focus on pushing growth in the economy. The main question you’ll all no doubt have is… “how does it affect me?”, let’s take a look…
Struggling to find great people? Why creating and sharing a vision is a key element to business growth
6 April 2023
Mark Friend
Payroll, People, Building a Business
In this two-part series of blogs relating to business growth we look at probably the biggest challenge facing most small businesses – finding great people.
In this blog we look at why your vision can be a crucial element in attracting great people.
In the next blog we will go deeper and explore why core values matter more than CVs.
What does success look like in Business?
In business there are three key attributes to success:
- Strong demand.
- A great product.
- A robust infrastructure.
We covered this in a video we did some time ago. The robust infrastructure will include great premises, strong systems but most importantly of all – great people.
Barriers to Success
But I hear so many business owners saying things like:
“If only I could find the right people my business would grow so quickly.”
“Skilled labour isn’t out there.”
“Young people just don’t want to work.”
“Once you’ve trained them they leave you, so you’re wasting your money.”
The excuses go on and on, but miraculously if you ask who their competitors are, they can always come up with one who seems to have found that magic supply of missing labour.
Perception Vs. Reality
The reality is that as a small business you do have perceived restraints. Think of this from an employee’s perspective, they will inevitably think the following:
- A large firm offers more job security than a small firm.
- A large firm offers more opportunity for growth and promotion than a small firm.
- A large firm offers better training than a small firm.
- A large firm will pay better than a small firm.
However, in practice the reality can be very different.
I can happily give a counter argument and I am sure you can too if you sit down and think about it.
Better still, you could take these thoughts and build them into your future vision for your business – where are you going to be in 5 or 10 years’ time?
Business Growth – Planning for the Future
People want to be part of something big.
And being small gives you a huge advantage. The chances are you are on a journey and your business is growing quickly so inevitably you will have an exciting vision to tell prospective employees. If you haven’t then this is a must do. Individuals naturally want to be in a company that is going places and where they can be a part of and crucially benefit from its future success.
Your vision needs to speak to your employee’s desires. Most of us want something from a job. Money is important but so is progression, autonomy, to learn new skills, a cause. Money isn’t just about the current salary but future financial rewards. Consider how to make your business vision vivid so that your employees can see something exciting for them.
Once created, this vision can be used in your recruitment process to attract great people through an exciting job advertisement as well as becoming a key part of your interview process. It should also be used for team retention by telling your team repeatedly about where your business is heading, their part in the journey and the benefits for them. Vision is a key element to your business growth and defining it will help provide clarity to you and your team.
The right support for Business Growth
If you are passionate about creating a truly successful business which will provide you with the income to support the lifestyle you want and the discretionary time to enjoy it then please get in touch.
We will discuss with you our range of business growth advisory services available to our clients, including business planning (a one day session to produce a one page business plan to provide a clear plan to build your business) where we will go deep to uncover your goals and help you define a clear vision for your future business.
If you would like to find out more, please contact Andrew Grant or Mark Friend or call us 01634 731390.
Our services
If you would like to find out more about some of our services that might help you please take a look at our related pages:
Take a look at our other blogs on the topic of Business Growth
