Every business understands that effective labor management is essential when it comes to increasing the productivity, safety, and efficiency of every project. The managers bear all burden to ensure that the labor is working effectively to meet the needs of supply and demand chains.

Here are some effective ways to improve labor management in your company for the best of your business.

1. Use Standardized KPIs

It can be hard to hold someone accountable for their performance when there is no evidence to back up the claims. In such circumstances, the labor deserving of praise may be left out, and those who need improvement may continue to waste company time and resources. Of course, such practices can cost you a lot of time and money in the long run.

Hence, smart companies worldwide are using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as a tool for worker motivation and accountability. These indicators help them better understand why certain standardized goals exist and their role in making the company succeed.

2. Incorporate a Software

Managers have a lot on their shoulders in addition to managing the workforce. A few people cannot keep an eye on everyone throughout the day. They need Kaizen Software to find the best solution for labor management. This way, the managers can find time to pay attention to many more important matters.

Efficient management software is being used worldwide due to its countless benefits. They offer security, better communication, and enhanced tracking to make your business more efficient. Hence, your business will have a better opportunity to grow and bloom.

3. Ensure Safety at the Workplace

Every workspace has its own challenges. However, everyone can agree that industrial workers have more challenges when it comes to safety. After all, they are surrounded by heavy machinery and face increased chances of accidents, injuries, and even fatalities. Hence, it must be a top priority to make your workplace safer.

You can start by looking into the hazards in your workspace and minimizing them one by one. In addition, it is also important to ensure that all your workers have access to safety gear at all times. Caution can save more lives than building an elaborate regime to care for injured workers.

4. Keep Workers Posted

Whether a construction site or a chemical industry, there can be new hazards and precautions for workers every day. A little negligence in the workplace can lead to a regrettable accident. Hence, it is always a good idea to keep your workers informed about current events.

Knowledge about company procedures and safety rules can reduce insecurity among workers and increase their efficiency. It is best to let your workers know that all their questions will be answered. This way, they can feel more comfortable seeking your guidance instead of finding out by trial and error.

Here, we will explore ten strategies and practices for employee management and engagement in small businesses.

1. Clear Communication and Expectations

Clear communication is vital to set expectations and ensure alignment between the business and its employees. Regularly communicate goals, priorities, and performance expectations to your team. Provide feedback and recognition for their achievements and address any concerns or issues promptly. Encourage an open-door policy and create channels for open dialogue and feedback.

2. Training and Development Opportunities

Investing in training and development opportunities for your employees demonstrates your commitment to their growth and success. Identify areas where employees can benefit from additional skills or knowledge and provide relevant training programs. This can include workshops, conferences, online courses, or mentoring programs. Encourage a culture of continuous learning and support employees’ professional development.

3. Employee Recognition and Rewards

Recognizing and rewarding employee contributions is essential for fostering motivation and engagement. Implement a recognition program that acknowledges outstanding performance, teamwork, and achievements. This can include verbal praise, written appreciation, or tangible rewards such as bonuses or incentives. Regularly celebrate milestones and accomplishments to show appreciation for your employees’ hard work.

4. Work-Life Balance and Well-being

Promote a healthy work-life balance and prioritize employee well-being. Offer flexible work arrangements when possible, such as remote work options or flexible scheduling. Encourage breaks and time off to prevent burnout. Provide resources and support for physical and mental well-being, such as access to wellness programs or employee assistance programs. Show genuine care and support for your employees’ overall well-being.

5. Foster a Collaborative and Inclusive Culture

Create a collaborative and inclusive culture that values diversity and fosters teamwork. Encourage open communication, idea sharing, and collaboration among employees. Foster an environment where everyone feels valued, respected, and included. Embrace diverse perspectives and leverage the unique strengths of your team members to drive innovation and growth.

6. Performance Management and Feedback

Establish a robust performance management system to set clear goals, provide regular feedback, and evaluate employee performance. Implement regular performance reviews to discuss progress, identify development areas, and set new objectives. Provide constructive feedback that focuses on both strengths and areas for improvement to support employee growth.

7. Empowerment and Autonomy

Encourage autonomy and empower employees to take ownership of their work. Delegate responsibilities and provide them with the necessary resources and authority to make decisions. Encourage innovation and creativity by allowing employees to explore new ideas and approaches. Trust their expertise and provide guidance when needed.

8. Career Growth and Advancement

Support your employees’ career growth and advancement within the organization. Provide opportunities for skill development, such as stretch assignments or cross-functional projects. Offer mentorship programs or coaching to help employees navigate their career paths. Create a clear path for advancement and communicate the potential growth opportunities available to them.

9. Team Building and Social Activities

Organize team-building activities and social events to foster strong relationships among your employees. This can include off-site retreats, team lunches, or recreational activities. Encourage team bonding and camaraderie to enhance collaboration and create a positive work culture.

10. Continuous Improvement

Establish a culture of continuous feedback and improvement. Encourage regular check-ins between managers and employees to discuss progress, challenges, and goals. Solicit feedback from employees on processes, policies, and workplace initiatives. Actively listen to their suggestions and make necessary improvements to enhance the work environment.

Takeaway

Effective employee management and engagement are critical for small businesses to thrive. By prioritizing clear communication, providing training and development opportunities, recognizing and rewarding employee contributions, promoting work-life balance and well-being, fostering a collaborative and inclusive culture, and implementing additional strategies such as performance management, empowerment, career growth, team building, and continuous feedback, small business owners can create a positive and engaging work environment.

Investing in your employees’ success and happiness not only benefits them individually but also contributes to the overall success and growth of your small business.

As a startup founder, wouldn’t it be awesome if you could predict the future a little bit more than you currently do? It turns out you can: By paying close attention to what the behemoths in your space are doing. Last year’s AWS Re:Invent set the direction for a lot of what Amazon is doing this year — including where it invests. Re:Invent 2023 is coming up soon.

Google I/O revealed that Google is investing heavily in computational photography, large language models and all things AI. As a startup, you can use these data points and draw a line into the future: Can you align yourself with the big-picture trends? Are you missing anything?

This week, at Apple’s worldwide developer conference WWDC, the company took the wraps off its AR/VR headset. Priced at $3,500 it won’t be a commercial success, but as a startup, you’d be very silly not to pay attention: It is a complete game-changer for startups.

Startup valuations are taking a pounding

After a frothy few years of don’t-call-it-a-bubble, it seems like the inevitable market correction is here. We’ve seen wave after wave of tech layoffs, and it seems like investors are starting to take a more realistic view of their investments, starting to mark them down.

Marking down an investment doesn’t necessarily mean drama; it refers to the common process of adjusting the value of an investment asset to reflect its current market value. In the case of VC, that often happens if the valuation turned out to be a bit on the optimistic side. Investors will typically mark down investments to avoid overstating their portfolio’s worth. In a nutshell, it’s best practice to acknowledge potential losses before they are realized. That’s what is happening now — and perhaps should have been happening for a while, as Rebecca argued late last year, when she noticed that a bunch of startups had quietly marked down their own valuations.

Jeremy Abelson and Jacob Sonnenberg, both at Irving Investors, argue that if you haven’t yet, you probably won’t grow into your 2023 investment valuation.

Just in the past few weeks week, we had another handful of examples of this:

Life is a highway

The EV space is exploding (sometimes literally) at the moment, and there seems to be a huge amount of stuff in motion in the world of transportation.

Mercedes just got permission from the state of California to start selling a car that can self-drive without having to hold the wheel or look at the road. No doubt this’ll set Elon Musk’s little temperature gauge to “furious” as the company’s cars do attract a federal tax break but come up short on the self-driving front in its native California.

Price is often brought up as a major hurdle for EVs, but Volvo snuck out a small SUV that can cruise along for 275 miles and has a sub-$35,000 price tag. That still isn’t pocket change, but it’s a lot cheaper than a lot of the EVs on the road. Meanwhile, Fiat showed off a city vehicle it’s working on that made both Harri and myself squee with delight.

Safety is another theme across TechCrunch’s transportation coverage: Smarter cars should, in theory, mean safer roads. In practice, Waymo had to explain why one of its autonomous Jaguars ran down a dog in San Francisco last month, and Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recently proposed a rule that means all new cars and trucks would need to have emergency systems that “would have to be capable of stopping and avoiding contact with a vehicle at speeds of up to 62 miles per hour.”

Remember what we said about legislation driving innovation and opportunities for startup? That proposed NHTSA rule falls into that category. Thought experiment: Could your company tap into that shift somehow?

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch

Apple sets the pace

While Apple isn’t really a startup, it is the world’s first $3 trillion market cap company, so in a week where our servers have been melting from all of the exciting news that came out of the WWDC keynote, I wanted to highlight some of the things that are most interesting to startups and startup founders.

One thing worth paying attention to is the Apple Design Awards, which often foreshadow large trends in design and user experience best practices — along with what the Cupertino-based software giant celebrates at the moment.

Another trend worth paying attention to from Apple is its focus on health and safety: It released a check-In feature to ensure people get home safe, a nudity filter to shield you from unsolicited real-life aubergine emoji and mental health mood tracking. All of that is specific to this WWDC, but it continues a trend: Fall detection, car crash detection, ECG to detect heart events, and lots of other health and safety indicators. It has made it easier to find and disable AirTags that might be used for stalking, and a Safety Check and lockdown mode, which takes your iPhone off the radar to get away from an abusive partner (more from our security team here).

As a startup, all of the above should give you pause for thought: There are big trends at play here that Apple clearly wants to continue to invest in. Apple has gone heavy into the privacy of your data, and leaning into security, safety, mental and physical health and more. Build something truly innovative in these spaces, and you have the world’s most valuable company validating that these are problems worth solving.

Founded by Henry Ford in 1903, the Ford Motor Company rocketed to success by mass-producing reliable, low-priced automobiles. When Henry’s son, Edsel, took the helm in 1918, he championed a different strategy for a new era. He sought to replace the Model T — iconic but outdated — with a more modern design geared to high-end and foreign markets, and later embraced compromise with labor amid the suffering of the Great Depression.

But Henry could not let go of Ford’s origin story, undermining his son at every turn. The result was declining sales and years of labor strife that left the company on the brink of collapse by the 1940s. It was only the efforts of Edsel’s son, the more forceful Henry Ford II, that saved the auto giant from bankruptcy.

In family enterprise, generational transitions often pit one narrative against another: tradition versus innovation, continuity versus change. Indeed, when older generations craft painstaking succession plans or build elaborate constraints into trusts or shareholder agreements, they are really constructing a story: about the values and life lessons that helped them succeed, and that they hope will do the same for their children. Younger generations, however, must often adapt this narrative to their own goals and values, along with the changing world around them.

Failure to reconcile conflicting narratives can spell ruin for a family business or the waste of a financial legacy, as it nearly did for the Fords. To avoid this fate, families need to think differently about the stories they tell.

The value of critical distance

Conventional wisdom holds that family heritage, like wealth and reputation, “belongs” to the older generation. In this telling, succeeding generations are merely stewards or caretakers. They are given an inheritance or entrusted with the family business — and then charged with not frittering it away or screwing it up. Framed this way, a legacy can feel more like a burden than a gift.

Of course, it’s not as simple as that. Research suggests that younger generations do value their family heritage, especially as a source of traditions more motivating than money alone, and are motivated to preserve it. According to a 2021 survey of 300 Canadian business owners by the Family Enterprise Foundation, nearly 90% of next-generation family business leaders believe it is important to preserve a legacy.

But younger generations also want something more from that heritage: a sense of purpose, a collective identity for the family, the seeds of new entrepreneurial gambits, permission to go their own way. And as our own research shows, next-generation leaders are uniquely positioned to find what they are looking for in the family story.

Older generations often identify closely with the family or the family business, which can actually obstruct key learnings from the past. Eager to protect the family’s reputation, they may downplay scandal or setback rather than learn from it. By contrast, our analysis of 94 family businesses shows that younger generations tend to have more critical distance from the family story. This lets them grapple with its difficult chapters and respond appropriately, whether by making amends for past misdeeds or by reforming business practices going forward. It also frees them to draw insights from their story that can fuel innovation and sustainability.

Legacy as a source of purpose

How, then, can the next generation build on their family legacy while recasting it as their own? Our research and experience suggest four strategies for next-generation leaders.

1. Seek out role models in the family story.

Some next-generation leaders hesitate to embark on risky new ventures outside the traditional scope of the family business. Locating exemplars in the family story can legitimize a new way forward.

One third-generation CEO used this approach to advance his vision for a more sustainable enterprise. Fredo Arias-King, head of Mexican pine resin producer Pinosa Group, had lamented the disappearance of Mexico’s ancient pine forests that threatened both the industry and the communities that depend on it. Then he stumbled onto the published speeches of his grandfather, company founder José Antonio Arias Álvarez, who had preached environmental stewardship. “I don’t think he could have known just how devastated the forest would eventually become,” said Arias-King, “but somehow my grandfather knew that planting trees would become extremely important.”

Affirmed by his grandfather’s words, Arias-King helped found Ejido Verde, a nonprofit that would later become an independent, for-profit enterprise. By making no-interest loans to farmers and communities, with pine resin as the means of repayment, the organization promotes reforesting through new pine plantations.

2. Forge an identity beyond the founder-entrepreneur.

It’s easy to revere the family’s wealth creator. For the two adult grandchildren of one founder-entrepreneur — a private equity pioneer who rose from poverty to become one of America’s richest people — that was the problem. They wanted their own children, beneficiaries of a generation-skipping trust, to know the person behind the legacy that would pass to them. So they engaged one of us (John Seaman) to probe beyond the classic rags-to-riches tale they had heard growing up.

The founder, they learned, was a gifted yet deeply troubled man. This more nuanced understanding enabled the two generations to have a frank conversation about the issues raised by their ancestor’s life: the obligations of a business to its workers and communities; the consequences of untreated mental illness; and the unfair burden often shouldered by women in wealthy families.

This conversation, in turn, led members of the fourth generation, all in their twenties, to rethink their roles in the family enterprise. One set aside her qualms about joining the family business and put herself on a path to succeed her father as president, but with a determination to nudge the company’s private equity portfolio toward impact investing. Another resolved to pursue her own entrepreneurial dreams outside of the business, rooted in progressive values that were in stark contrast with her great-grandfather’s. Still another joined the board of the family foundation, where she helped steer its grant-making toward her generation’s individual passions.

By seeing their founder-entrepreneur in human terms, the family’s younger generation was able to move beyond hero worship to forge their own identities — which promised to make them responsible owners and stewards of their ancestor’s wealth and the business that created it.

3. Reckon with past wrongs to find a new path forward.

Many families have skeletons in the closet — scandal or wrongdoing they have long concealed or downplayed. (Henry Ford’s history of antisemitism and violent confrontations with unions are examples of this.) The willingness to confront these darker chapters, it turns out, can be a powerful motivation.

That was the case for the Reimann family, owners of consumer goods conglomerate JAB Holding Company and one of Germany’s richest families. The three adult children of Albert Reimann Jr., who ran the company in the 1930s and 1940s, knew they had been born of their father’s affair with an employee, Emilie Landecker. They also knew that Emilie’s Jewish father, Alfred, had been murdered by the Nazis. But it was not until 2019, when they commissioned research on the company, that a more sinister secret emerged: their father and paternal grandfather were themselves ardent believers in Nazi race theory who abused forced laborers.

It was the younger generation — Albert Jr.’s grandchildren — who were most adamant about reckoning with this secret. “When I read of the atrocities…sanctioned by my grandfather, I felt like throwing up,” recalled Martin Reimann. “I cannot claim that I was very interested in politics before…But after what happened, I changed my mind.”

At the insistence of Martin’s generation, the Reimanns paid compensation to former forced laborers and their families. But they did not stop there. They refocused their family foundation on combating antisemitism and strengthening democratic institutions. They also renamed the foundation in honor of Alfred Landecker, making him the narrative driver behind the more fundamental change they sought. Far from an isolated act of corporate atonement, then, this was an attempt by the next generation to use lessons from their family heritage to build a more just future.

4. Leverage the family story as a source of competitive advantage.

For some family business entrepreneurs, the next venture can begin with a step back. So it was for British restaurateurs (and sisters) Helen and Lisa Tse, whose family heritage empowered their rise.

Their grandmother, Lily Kwok, had emigrated from Hong Kong in 1956 and settled in Manchester, where she and her daughter Mabel built one of Britain’s first Chinese restaurants. But the business eventually went bankrupt, the victim of racism and Chinese gangs.

The story might have ended there. Instead, Helen and Lisa picked up the threads of their family narrative and carried it forward. Abandoning successful professional careers, they established their own Manchester restaurant, Sweet Mandarin, in 2004. But the restaurant only took off when Helen published a best-selling memoir about her grandmother. With this narrative platform, the sisters branched out into other endeavors, like cookbooks and cookery classes, tied to their own life stories.

For the Tse sisters, family heritage proved to be a source of competitive advantage. By recovering an immigrant’s tale with universal appeal, they gained acceptance outside of their own ethnic communities. And by situating themselves in an entrepreneurial tradition spanning three generations, they created a sense of longevity that evoked quality and trustworthiness, even as they also innovated new products alongside recipes inherited from their grandmother.

. . .

Family legacy is not a monologue; it’s a dialogue, a collective story that belongs to the whole family. When families think of legacy in these terms, they empower younger generations to harness that story to their own purposes, drawing strength from their elders. Legacy, in short, becomes not a burden but a blessing — one that can help families sustain wealth and purpose long into the future.

When Kendra Grant’s team was charged with designing and delivering learning experiences for 90,000 Walmart Canada associates, she knew as a senior learning-and-design director that the landscape of corporate learning needs was constantly changing. “Over time,” says Grant, now the principal of her own L&D practice, “we acknowledged that many of the problems we saw such as lack of engagement and lack of retention were a result of the design process and not the fault of the learners.”

If you are in a leadership role in your organization, you more than likely share this problem. Technology and society are driving changes faster than your people can adapt. According to the OECD, 1.1 billion jobs will be disrupted in the next five years. Employees the world over require upskilling (learning to improve current work) and reskilling (learning to do new types of work). Some organizations are heeding the signs and investing heavily in learning and development: Walmart, for example, is investing $1 billion into reskilling its workforce, and McDonald’s has spent $165 million over the past eight years to prepare 72,000 employees for upward mobility. The Association for Talent Development’s most recent study found the average organization spends almost $1,300 per employee on professional learning. Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, exhorts everyone to be a “learn-it-all.”

Workers of today need to prepare for what they’ll be doing tomorrow. But how can they adapt effectively if their work is changing in real time? What skills can they learn now that will support them in the face of a volatile and ambiguous future? And how can their employers support them?

There’s a simple but not easy answer to all of these questions. Employers have to help employees become expert learners — people with the will to learn, the skill to do it effectively, and the ability to apply that learning in ways that positively impact their performance and that of their teams.

Still Wearing Blinders

Traditionally, learning within organizations has been driven by a single department. In a general attempt to motivate and support employee development, the learning-and-development team — which sometimes consists of just one person — acts as an order filler for operations managers and leadership, providing formal learning support, such as classroom training and online modules. Frequently, these efforts are augmented by tuition assistance for degree and certificate programs at institutes of higher education. In recent years, companies have created digital “learning-management systems” or “learning-experience platforms” that offer a Netflix-style menu of learning content that employees can access on-demand and at their own pace.

Unfortunately, however, these approaches to employee learning are not up today’s challenge, for a few reasons:

A day late and a dollar short. Content creation lags significantly behind the need for that content, making the content available less relevant to current needs. Also, when an employee needs new knowledge and skills now, a course next month isn’t helpful.

One-size-fits-none. Every learner is unique, with varied strengths, experiences, and challenges. Every learner works in different contexts, thus requiring greater personalization to support meaningful learning and improvement.

A lack of support for application. Pushing out content can impart new information, but developing effective skills requires coaching, reinforcement, and opportunities for safe, authentic practice.

A cultural disconnect. Leaders can say they value learning, but according to Deloitte, workers actually have less than 1% of their time available for learning. Further, learning can be messy, because it requires that people try new things and make mistakes. If an organization punishes people for those mistakes, as some do, people will shy away from learning.

Learner experience and identity. Not everyone thinks of themselves as a lifelong learner, nor do they all have the skills to learn and apply learning effectively. Further, biases in development programs may reinforce the notion that only some people are capable of learning and therefore worth the investment. This bias is communicated to workers.

There Is a Solution

We need to address these barriers to learning in order to meet the challenges of today and the future. Learning, after all, is what enables people to adapt to change and even become drivers of change. But, as Matthew Daniel has recently noted on the Chief Learning Officer website, even if people want to learn they may not know what to learn — or how to learn.

Expert learning requires two key conditions. The first is context. People need the time and space to learn. They need timely, actionable feedback; opportunities for collaboration; and just-in-time support to convert new knowledge and skills into measurable performance improvement. Then there’s capacity. Each person has talents, strengths, interests, challenges, and experiences that influence how they engage with, make sense of, and apply new knowledge and skills. We can’t assume everyone has developed the requisite learning skills and behaviors, and we can’t effectively gauge learning capacity in advance. However, we can help all people become expert learners, by providing them with options to learn and apply key learning behaviors rooted in a framework known as the Universal Design for Learning.

UDL, as it’s often called, was first devised in the 1990s by researchers and clinicians at the nonprofit learning organization CAST, Inc., under the direction of the neuropsychologist David Rose, of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Today it’s endorsed in federal education legislation as a means for supporting inclusive, impactful learning for all learners. That includes workforce preparation and training. In essence, UDL helps us embrace the differences between learners — their variability in strengths, interests, attitudes, cultures, and more — by setting firm, challenging goals and allowing for flexible pathways to meet those goals.

When employing UDL in creating learning experiences, you’re encouraged to think of learning as a set of behaviors and skills that exist on a continuum from novice to expert. Novice learning is primarily guided by external forces: Novices learn what they’re told, when they’re told, for the reasons given to them. They are the type of learners whom top-down, one-size-fits-all training was meant to serve. A distinct step above the novice level is self-directed learning, where learners take the initiative for their own learning, making decisions about what, when, and how to learn.

Expert learning takes things to another level, by adding in specific learning skills and a focus on strategic performance improvement. Expert learners have the will and skill to learn, can identify ways to leverage that learning into impact, and are always looking for new challenges and ways to improve their skills. They are the learners best able to adapt to the rapidly changing modern workplace.

How Expert Learners Improve Outcomes

Building a strong learning culture that focuses on capacity and context can give companies a strategic advantage. Let’s consider why.

First, employees who are skilled learners can more readily innovate, for what is innovation if not the learning how to solve a problem in a new way? A person focused on continuous improvement rarely settles for “We’ve always done it this way.” Expert learners can identify emerging knowledge and skill needs and generate new knowledge to meet those needs.

Next, learning fuels employee engagement. Employer-supported learning is a key driver of retention, particularly when learning is visibly linked to employee development — that is, upward mobility. Creating a culture that supports people to learn and own their improvement makes improvement a common cause between the employees and the organization. Further, a visible emphasis on learning can be key to attracting new talent, with Gen Z and Millennial workers citing learning and upward mobility as key motivators in selecting job opportunities.

Finally, investing in learning is just that: an investment. According to Gallup, companies that invest in employee development increase profitability by 11%.

Building a Culture of Expert Learners

Building a culture of expert learning is a complex undertaking. There are, however, some foundational practices, aligned with UDL, that leaders and teams can engage in as they work to develop support an expert learning culture.

Adopt a learning philosophy and stick to it.

A learning philosophy is a codification of what the organization believes about learning, including its value, the responsibilities of each person related to learning, and the methods by which the organization will support its employees to learn and improve.

Consider the philosophy of the United States Marine Corps, where learning is literally a survival skill. In 2020, the USMC published Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 7: Learning, or the MCDP 7, which tells all Marines, from the lowest-ranking enlisted member to the commandant, that they have a professional responsibility to learn. It also lays out the necessary conditions for learning, requiring each Marine to contribute to and leverage those conditions. All Marines are told they can’t rely on a training department of some sort but instead have to define and own their roles as learners. “Continuous learning is essential,” USMC Commandant Gen. D.H. Berger writes in the MCDP-7, “… because it enables Marines to quickly recognize changing conditions in the battlespace, adapt, and make timely decisions against a thinking enemy.”

Audit your culture for barriers to learning.

With your learning philosophy in place, make sure the collective behaviors, practices, and systems of your organization — and particularly the behaviors of your leaders — model and support the tenets of that philosophy. Examine what learning currently looks like in your organization and begin addressing common barriers. Provide time and resources for learning and regularly reinforcing the value of learning. Incentivize experimentation, collaboration, and knowledge-sharing. Promote team learning over individual knowledge-hoarding. Link learning to development by creating clear pathways for skill development and promotion. And enlist frontline employees and managers to more quickly identify learning needs and potential solutions.

Be flexible.

To act like expert learners, particularly in selecting and strategically applying learning, people need flexibility in when and how they learn. New approaches, such as learner-cluster design and the modern-learning–ecosystem framework, acknowledge variability among learners, providing them options that best suit their learning needs, and close the gap between formal learning and where learning happens most — on the job.

* * *

Change is constant, and the need for adaptability extends beyond leaders to every level of the organization. When employees own their improvement, they can better anticipate, communicate, and meet their upskilling and reskilling needs. As Kendra Grant pointed out in describing her work with Walmart, many barriers to improvement that are thought to be internal to learners are really external — they’re flaws in the design. UDL helps us focus on what works for people rather than on what’s not working in them. By providing the right context and supporting capacity, we can make expert learning become the skill that fills the skills gap.

In this article, we will explore effective strategies for small business owners to identify and address quiet quitters in the workplace, fostering a more engaged and motivated team.

1. Recognizing the Signs

Identifying quiet quitters requires attentiveness to subtle cues. Look for signs such as a decline in productivity, missed deadlines, decreased enthusiasm, reduced collaboration, or a general lack of initiative. Paying attention to these indicators can help you pinpoint employees who may be disengaged and in need of support.

2. Promote Open Communication

Establishing a culture of open communication is crucial to addressing disengagement. Encourage regular one-on-one meetings with employees, providing a safe and non-judgmental space for them to share their concerns, challenges, and aspirations. Actively listen to their feedback, ask for suggestions, and demonstrate a genuine interest in their professional growth and well-being.

3. Conduct Stay Interviews

Similar to exit interviews, stay interviews are conducted to understand the motivations and concerns of current employees. These interviews can help uncover any underlying issues or dissatisfactions that may contribute to disengagement. By proactively addressing concerns, you can prevent talented individuals from becoming quiet quitters and potentially losing them to the competition.

4. Set Clear Goals and Expectations

Quiet quitters may arise when employees lack a clear understanding of their roles, responsibilities, and performance expectations. Establish clear goals and communicate them effectively. Provide clarity regarding job requirements, performance metrics, and growth opportunities. This clarity empowers employees and reduces the likelihood of disengagement.

5. Foster a Positive Work Environment

A positive work environment plays a pivotal role in retaining engaged employees. Encourage teamwork, recognize and celebrate achievements, and create opportunities for social interaction among team members. Consider implementing flexible work arrangements, wellness initiatives, or employee engagement activities that promote work-life balance and overall job satisfaction.

6. Provide Constructive Feedback and Recognition

Regularly provide feedback to employees, both in terms of constructive criticism and recognition of their accomplishments. Constructive feedback helps individuals understand areas for improvement, while recognition acknowledges their contributions and boosts morale. This balanced approach shows that you value their work and are invested in their success.

7. Implement Recognition and Rewards Programs

In addition to providing regular feedback, implementing recognition and rewards programs can boost employee engagement. Create a system that acknowledges exceptional performance, celebrates achievements, and rewards employees for their contributions. This recognition not only increases motivation but also fosters a sense of appreciation and loyalty.

8. Offer Professional Development Opportunities

Employees often feel demotivated when they perceive a lack of growth opportunities within the organization. Provide avenues for skill development, training programs, mentorship, or even cross-functional projects. Demonstrating your investment in their professional growth can reignite their enthusiasm and commitment to the business.

9. Lead by Example

As a small business owner, your actions and behavior set the tone for the entire team. Lead by example by demonstrating a strong work ethic, passion, and dedication. Show that you value work-life balance and prioritize employee well-being. Your leadership style can inspire and motivate employees to actively engage in their work.

10. Create Opportunities for Skill Utilization

Employees may become disengaged if they feel their skills and talents are underutilized. Regularly assess the strengths and abilities of your team members and provide opportunities for them to utilize and develop their skills. Assign challenging projects, encourage cross-training, or delegate responsibilities that align with their expertise and interests.

Conclusion

Addressing disengagement among employees is crucial for small business owners who aim to maintain a motivated and high-performing team. By recognizing the signs, promoting open communication, conducting stay interviews, offering professional development opportunities, fostering a positive work environment, providing constructive feedback and recognition, setting clear goals and expectations, leading by example, creating opportunities for skill utilization, and implementing recognition and rewards programs, you can effectively address quiet quitters and nurture a culture of engagement within your small business.

Remember, an engaged workforce is not only more productive but also contributes significantly to the long-term success and growth of your business.

These answers are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most successful young entrepreneurs. YEC members represent nearly every industry, generate billions of dollars in revenue each year, and have created tens of thousands of jobs. Learn more at yec.co.

1. The Ability to Problem-Solve

The one trait I would say is the most important to entrepreneurs is the ability to creatively problem-solve. Sometimes, solutions to business problems aren’t obvious and you have to find an out-of-the-box solution. That can be a real challenge because most people are taught to color within the lines.

– Baruch Labunski, Rank Secure

2. Grit

You need courage, resolve and strength of character to withstand the ebbs, flows and failures that lead to successful business. The best way to get this is through experience. I’ve seen a lot of young entrepreneurs with more grit than their older counterparts, especially when they had customer service jobs and worked their way up the ladder to experience different seats in the company.

– Givelle Lamano, Oakland DUI Attorneys

3. Flexibility

One of the most essential traits an entrepreneur can possess is flexibility. You need to be able to change your approach in response to market conditions, customer feedback and what any partners or investors want at any given time. Being flexible also means looking at “failure” as a signal to make changes rather than as a permanent obstacle.

– Kalin Kassabov, ProTexting

4. Fearlessness

Aspiring entrepreneurs should be fearless. It’s fear that often prevents you from grabbing new opportunities, as new entrepreneurs are unable to decide what’s best for them or how a particular decision would affect them. Well, you won’t know unless you try. So, be quick with your decisions. Preparedness is great and all, but if you’re afraid to make a move, someone else will — and will likely succeed. 

– Chris Klosowski, Easy Digital Downloads

5. Sociability

To be successful as an entrepreneur, you need to focus on developing your social skills. When you have strong social skills, it becomes easier for you to build strong relationships with your customers, investors or anyone you think is important to your business. Good social skills make you a better communicator and help you make others feel secure so they connect with you on a deeper level.

– Andrew Munro, AffiliateWP

6. Determination

One trait you need to succeed as an entrepreneur is determination. You’ll encounter people who don’t like your idea. There will be times when clients or investors reject you. Your first project idea may never see the light of day. You need to have the drive to move past these unfortunate situations if you want to find success.

– Daman Jeet Singh, FunnelKit

7. Decisiveness

Decisiveness is the main trait any successful entrepreneur needs to cultivate. From making decisions about the budget or day-to-day communication, maintaining the ability to decide and decide quickly remains imperative. I use mental models like Occam’s razor to run my life. For example, when presented with two options, I choose the simplest and I get a lot of significant work done.

– Libby Rothschild, Dietitian Boss

8. A Realistic Mindset

Be realistic! An entrepreneur’s career is full of ups and downs, which are part of the learning process — and that’s a fact. Keeping your feet on the ground will save you much frustration when things don’t go the way you want. Instead, learn your lessons and keep moving. This will also help you to consider and prepare for multiple scenarios while adjusting along the way.

– Riccardo Conte, Virtus Flow

9. Moxie

In order to be an entrepreneur, you must have some moxie. Being outspoken, direct, resilient and having the ability to persevere is something that most entrepreneurs have in common. You have moxie if you can get up after failing. Aspiring entrepreneurs can cultivate it by focusing on confidence. Stand up for what you believe in and don’t let others’ opinions or perceptions get in your way.

– Jennifer A Barnes, Optima Office, Inc.

10. The Ability to Follow Long-Term Plans

The ability to follow and execute on a long-term plan — meaning multiple years — without being sidetracked by mirages along the way or discouraged by inevitable ups and downs is so important. This requires you to learn multiple skills, including attention to detail, deep work and strategic vision (as opposed to tunnel vision, which trips up many entrepreneurs). 

– Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance

11. A Willingness to Keep Learning

If you want to succeed as an entrepreneur, you should have an open mind toward learning. It’s important for you to realize that learning is an ongoing process. It can help you develop new skills that in turn can help you stay ahead of your competitors at all times.

– Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster

12. A Self-Reflective Mind

One trait that can help aspiring entrepreneurs succeed is self-reflection. Embracing your mistakes and learning from them is the only way an entrepreneur can grow and be better than ever before. However, one can’t cultivate this skill by enrolling in a particular program. You have to have an open mind, give yourself the freedom to make mistakes and foster the courage to learn from them.

– Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms

13. Resilience

Resilience is one of the most important traits you can develop as an entrepreneur. The journey is going to have high highs and low lows, and it will be your ability to push through and persevere during this time that will be the difference between success and failure. To develop resilience, develop a positive mindset, build a strong support system, understand your purpose and look after yourself.

– Zane Stevens, Protea Financial

14. The Ability to Thrive on Ambiguity

The cornerstone of entrepreneurial success is in the ability to accept and thrive on ambiguity. I have found that navigating the unpredictable landscape of business ventures requires you to possess a flexible mindset that can accommodate constant change and capitalize on emerging opportunities. Always stay updated with the latest developments and treat every change as an opportunity to grow.

– Vikas Agrawal, Infobrandz

It’s everyone’s dream to have their own business. With entrepreneurship, you become your own boss, you set your goals, and if things go well, you can make more money. However, owning a business also means you need to manage stress..

From wrangling employees, to long hours, to worrying that the business could fail to problems with equipment, not making sales, not having enough capital to having too much debt, the list is endless — in short, it’s hard work

These things can make owning a business more stressful and lead to burnout as a small business owner.

But it seems you can’t escape the stress of owning a business, with a 2021 survey showing that 52 percent of small business owners experienced stress during the year.

The best you can do is to learn how to manage stress and protect your well-being. This is especially important for small business owners because the success or failure of the business solely depends on them.

Even if you have a few employees, they depend on your guidance and the momentum you set for your business growth.

Learning to manage stress as a small business owner is as important as learning how to market a business and make sales. In fact, managing stress should be among your top long-term strategies for business growth.

This post highlights top stress management tips for small business owners:

Ready to do this? Let’s go!

How to manage stress as a small business owner

Owning a business is different from working for an established company. As a business owner, you have more responsibilities, and the success of your business largely depends on you.

Statistics show that about 20 percent of all small businesses fail within the first year. As a small business owner, you need to figure out how to keep your business going to ensure it doesn’t fall into that bracket.

Unlike employees, entrepreneurs don’t work for paychecks. They have the responsibility to ensure the company is on the right track. This can sometimes mean working more than 50 hours a week without an overpay or any income at all.

Undoubtedly, many things can stress small business owners, so the question remains: What are the most effective ways to manage stress? Let’s highlight them below:

Know your stressors

The first step to managing your stress is identifying the cause. Many things can stress small business owners, including lack of enough funds, time management issues, and employee management.

Your workplace stress as an entrepreneur could be due to things you can’t solve or get time to do.

Running and growing a business involves many trials and errors and entering unfamiliar territories. This and many other things can stress you even without knowing. To identify your stressors, you need to look back and analyze your actions and paths carefully.

Once you identify your stressors, you can begin looking for the best solution. Sometimes you will feel relieved just by identifying things causing you stress.

While identifying your stressors is important, you should also aim to be more self-aware. By gaining self-awareness, you can know what things or situations make you stressed and the best way to deal with the situation.

Also, when you become self-aware, you know your strengths and weaknesses, which is key when running a business.

One way to reduce stress is by delegating tasks that cause you stress. For example, you can delegate staff management to a team manager if dealing with them directly causes anxiety.

If that is not possible, knowing that a particular job causes stress will help you know how to prepare beforehand to reduce the impact on your mental state when handling it. For example, you can take a deep breath before the task or practice mindfulness.

Focus on the right things

Unless you retrain your mind, you will likely focus more on what is going wrong when running a small business than going right. While this can help rectify your mistakes to keep things going, focusing more on the negatives can lead to more stress.

You’ll be less likely to manage stress when you think about your capital deficit, things that are behind schedule, or an employee who didn’t respond to you appropriately.

Instead of focusing on things that go wrong, remind yourself of things that are going right. For example, you could remind yourself of positive feedback from a customer, an employee committed to their work, or the fact that you’ve dialed in important parts of your workflow.

List all the right things happening in your company, no matter how small they are. Once you have the list, you will be amazed at how much you have accomplished and the potential growth of your business. Keep the list somewhere you can easily see to act as a motivator whenever you feel stressed.

Create a schedule and stick to it

Without a structure, you’ll have no plan, meaning you won’t have a way to anticipate what can happen. When you don’t have a schedule, you have so much to do in a day that you might not do anything.

But when you plan, you can handle more and have enough time to anticipate what might happen.

You quit your 9-to-5 job because you wanted full control of your day, right? Unfortunately, if you don’t create a reasonable schedule and stick to it, you will not have that all-important work-life balance, meaning no time to fulfill your dreams.

Being a business owner should come with a sense of control and should be a reminder that you are your boss.

Having a routine helps you know what to expect each time of the day and comes with a sense of control and peace of mind. That means you don’t have to follow a schedule you haven’t created yourself. The best part is that you can always adjust your schedule if something stresses you.

Creating a schedule and sticking to it gives your mind and body a sense of protocol. This is good for your body clock, which determines when you feel energized or tired and impacts your focus.

When creating your routine, consider the effort you need to complete each task. Schedule the most challenging tasks before other tasks requiring less energy and concentration for better results.

You’ve probably heard small business owners complain that their day is never enough to complete their tasks. The truth is, the number of hours is never the problem but the lack of schedule.

If you schedule your end of the day, you’ll complete all your tasks on time and still have time to rest.

To better stick to your schedule, consider investing in scheduling software to help manage your time more effectively. If you can plan, anticipate, and organize your day, the stress of running a business will significantly reduce.

Prioritize sleep

Not sleeping the recommended number of hours (7-8) could impair cognitive functioning and deplete energy levels.

But telling people to “get enough sleep” without giving tips on how to achieve that doesn’t help. After all, if they could get sleep that easily, they could sleep. The fact that one is advised to sleep means they’re having trouble sleeping or don’t have time to sleep.

But telling people to prioritize self-care — including sleep — is a practical approach that can give results. Ideally, prioritizing sleep means becoming aware that sleeping enough is crucial to manage stress. But knowing that alone won’t help you sleep. Here are practical tips to help you sleep better:

• Stick to your routine. Sticking to your routine won’t only help you achieve your goals but also help you fall asleep easily.
• Avoid alcohol before sleep. While alcohol can make you sleepy, it only gives you lower-quality sleep. This, alongside other effects of alcoholism, makes alcohol not a better option before sleep.
• Avoid coffee at night. Coffee is a stimulant, meaning it increases activity in your brain and nervous system. Taking coffee at night will impact your ability to fall asleep and affect your daily routine.

These tips will help you have enough sleep at night. Having enough sleep means enough rest and more focus the following day.

Exercise more

While you should dedicate more of your time to your business, it shouldn’t be at the expense of your fitness. Exercising doesn’t only improve your physical health but is known to reduce stress as well.

However, this doesn’t mean spending two or more hours in a gym daily — not at all. A 30-minute walk every day or other physical activity will do.

For example, you can walk to your next meeting or walk around your workplace at lunchtime. Also, instead of sitting down for many hours in the office, consider having a standing desk or taking breaks from work to stretch your body.

Whatever the case, don’t spend countless hours in the office sitting, as this will impact your mental and general health — and could lead to health problems down the road.

Exercising increases endorphin levels (brain transmitters) that help you feel better. The higher the endorphin levels, the more you feel less stressed, and vice versa. Exercising is a great way to feel more satisfied and energized, and manage stress.

It helps improve your mood and gives you a better perspective on how to run your business.

Be mindful of your diet

What you eat impacts your mental health and general health. Regardless of how much you exercise, you will remain demotivated and probably moody if you eat unhealthy foods.

A balanced diet is a great way to improve your immune system and repair damaged body tissues. A healthy diet also provides the energy needed to manage stress and make you feel more relaxed.

The food you eat can help reduce stress or increase your stress levels. For example, you should avoid these foods if you are feeling stressed:

• Caffeine
• Alcohol
• Processed foods, including chips, frozen foods, cookies, etc.
• Sugary drinks and foods
• Foods with high trans fats like frozen pizza, fried foods, microwave popcorn, etc.

Instead, eat foods that can help promote feelings of warmth and calmness, including:

• Whole grains
• High fiber foods
• Foods high in magnesium, such as broccoli, avocados, bananas, pumpkin seeds, spinach, etc.
• Protein-rich foods such as peanuts, almonds, chicken breast, lean beef, eggs, etc.
• Foods high in vitamin B like chicken, beef, organ meats, eggs, etc.
• Foods with higher amounts of omega-3 fatty acids like avocados, olive oil, salmon, tuna, sardines, etc.

Eating healthily will not only provide the nutrients to handle stress but will also provide energy to exercise and handle daily work.

Delegate tasks

One of the reasons small business owners fail to manage stress is because they have more than they can handle. If that’s the case, delegating is a great way to reduce stress.

Some tasks cannot just be put on hold. This is especially so for tasks at the core of running your business.

But that doesn’t mean that you should be the one to handle them. To avoid being overwhelmed with tasks, outsource some of the duties or find team members to help free up your calendar (and mind).

Of course, delegating tasks can be hard, especially if you have been used to handling the tasks yourself. However, having reliable employees to delegate some tasks is a healthy business choice.

If you’re yet to train people to handle tasks that overwhelm you, you should start doing so. This will benefit your mental health and help you achieve more in your business.

Automate

Automation is similar to delegating, only that you’re relying on technology this time. Running a business today is unlike in the 90s when many things were done manually. Today, small business owners can use apps to automate many aspects of their businesses.

For example, my own company AlchemyLeads saw a 250 percent increase in monthly leads after automating their lead outreach process using Zapier. Not just outreach, small businesses can automate many areas of their businesses to boost effectiveness.

Businesses can save time by abandoning spreadsheet scheduling of their staff for online scheduling. Another area you can use automation is in running your payroll and posting on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media platforms.

While automation tools will cost money, they will make it easier to run your business and save a lot of time and money in the long run.

Be ready to say “no”

Sometimes you don’t need to delegate or even automate tasks; you only need to say “no.”

When the business is young, you’re likely to say “yes” to almost everything as long as it appears to be helping your business.

And truth be told, you don’t have many opportunities coming to you when starting, so you may seem like you don’t have much choice but to accept all opportunities that come your way.

However, as early as it is, it is good to create boundaries and focus only on things that will help grow your business. So, before you say “yes,” ask yourself whether the act has any short-term or long-term benefits for your business.

But saying “no” is not easy, especially on matters involving customer, employee, or partner happiness. However, remember that saying “yes” to everything might overwhelm you and affect your ability to deliver in the long run.

So, instead of agreeing to anything to make others happy, focus on doing what really matters and set your terms. If you don’t do that, you’ll be overwhelmed, and your acts won’t meet the standards.

Remember, you have limited time to do things that you value. So, learning to say “no” to unnecessary things will help reduce stress and give you more time to focus on more productive activities.

Take breaks

Even if you take the above steps, you won’t be able to manage stress if you work continuously without breaks. This can be as simple as taking a 10-minute break to stretch, walking around the office, or going on vacation.

Whichever way you decide to go, don’t worry about matters to do with your business when taking a break from work. If possible, turn off your phone and have someone handle the tasks on your behalf to ensure you have enough time to relax.

Stepping away from your business for a while will help decongest stress and give you a new perspective on your business and life.

Manage stress and keep thriving

Implementing even one of the above strategies can go a long way to help you manage stress. And once you experience those benefits, keep building on that success. After all, even the most successful business isn’t worth your well-being.

In this article, we will explore the art of risk-taking and the lessons we can learn from successful entrepreneurs.

1. Understand the Importance of Risk-Taking

Taking risks is an essential component of entrepreneurship. It is tough to develop and produce anything new without taking risks. Risk-taking is necessary for growth and progress, as successful entrepreneurs recognize. They also recognize that not every risk will pay off, but the potential rewards make the effort worthwhile.

2. Do Your Research

Before taking any risks, it is important to do your research. Successful entrepreneurs understand the importance of gathering as much information as possible before making a decision. This includes researching the market, competition, and potential customers. By doing your research, you can make informed decisions and minimize your risks.

3. Network Effectively

Networking is an essential part of entrepreneurship. Successful entrepreneurs understand the importance of building relationships with potential investors, customers, and other entrepreneurs. They attend events and conferences, participate in industry groups, and use social media to expand their network and create new opportunities.

4. Stay Committed

Entrepreneurship is a long and challenging journey. Successful entrepreneurs understand the importance of staying committed to their goals and vision, even when faced with obstacles and setbacks. They stay focused on their end goal and are willing to put in the time and effort necessary to achieve it.

5. Collaborate with Others

Entrepreneurship is often a team effort. Successful entrepreneurs understand the value of collaborating with others and building strong partnerships. They seek out individuals who bring complementary skills and expertise to the table and work together to achieve a shared vision.

6. Surround Yourself with Supportive People

Entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey. It is important to surround yourself with supportive people who believe in you and your vision. Successful entrepreneurs understand the value of having a support system and seek out mentors, advisors, and other entrepreneurs who can offer guidance and encouragement.

7. Set Realistic Goals

Taking risks is essential for entrepreneurship, but it is important to set realistic goals. Successful entrepreneurs understand the importance of setting achievable goals and breaking them down into smaller, more manageable steps. By setting realistic goals, entrepreneurs can reduce the risk of failure and stay motivated throughout the journey.

8. Stay Flexible

Entrepreneurship is a constantly evolving journey. Successful entrepreneurs understand the importance of staying flexible and adapting to changing circumstances. They are open to new ideas and are willing to pivot when necessary to stay ahead of the curve.

9. Learn from Feedback

Feedback is a valuable tool for entrepreneurs. Successful entrepreneurs seek out feedback from customers, mentors, and advisors and use it to refine their ideas and improve their products or services. They understand that feedback is not a personal attack, but rather an opportunity to grow and improve.

10. Take Care of Yourself

Entrepreneurship can be a stressful and demanding journey. It is important to take care of yourself both physically and mentally. Successful entrepreneurs prioritize their health and well-being and make time for self-care activities such as exercise, meditation, and spending time with loved ones. By taking care of themselves, entrepreneurs can stay energized and focused throughout their entrepreneurial journey.

11. Take Action

Successful entrepreneurs do not let fear hold them back. They take action and move forward, even when they are unsure of the outcome. They understand that taking action is the only way to achieve their goals and make their vision a reality.

12. Take Calculated Risks

While taking risks is important, successful entrepreneurs also know the importance of taking calculated risks. They carefully assess the potential risks and rewards before making a decision, and have a backup plan in case things don’t go as expected.

13. Trust Your Gut

While research is important, successful entrepreneurs also trust their gut instincts. They understand that sometimes you have to take a leap of faith and trust your intuition. Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, once said, “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”

14. Embrace Failure

Taking risks inevitably leads to failure at times. Successful entrepreneurs understand that failure is not the end, but rather an opportunity to learn and grow. They embrace failure and use it as a chance to improve and refine their ideas.

Conclusion

The art of risk-taking is a critical component of entrepreneurship. Successful entrepreneurs understand the importance of taking risks, doing their research, trusting their instincts, embracing failure, taking action, and surrounding themselves with supportive people.

Aspiring entrepreneurs can boost their chances of success and make their entrepreneurial aspirations a reality by adhering to these guidelines.