Productivity in uncertain times: 6 strategies for SMEs

6 min read  |   30 September, 2024   By Matt Rooke

A close-up image of a hand holding various symbolic items related to strategy. The hand grasps a lightbulb, magnifying glass, target and arrow, cogs and puzzle pieces. These elements suggest the concept of strategy and thoughtful planning, all held together in the palm of one hand, conveying control and focus over multiple strategic tasks.
    

The last few years have been a difficult time for businesses of all shapes and sizes. Through Covid, inflation, the great resignation and rising labour costs – it has been a challenge just to stay afloat and profitable. 

For SMEs, these challenges have been even greater. Today, 73% of SME decision-makers cite rising costs as a chief cause for concern. At the same time, 82% said the cost of living was having a negative impact on their business. 

The challenge now for SMEs is this: to remain competitive and profitable during a time of rising costs and decreased consumer spending. So how do you do that? 

Boosting productivity is an essential part of running a successful business. When done right, it helps you stay profitable and competitive without driving up costs. Here are six strategies to help you achieve just that:

 

1. Flexible working

In recent years, many organisations have experimented with flexible working. Of these, 38% say more home/hybrid working has increased productivity, compared with just 13% who say it has been detrimental. 

Not all flexible working policies are the same, and the right solution will be different for every organisation. While some will benefit from a 100% remote policy, others will prefer a hybrid approach. It could also include giving people the flexibility to work when they choose as well as where. 

Whatever the right approach, it’s important to consult with your team and work out what policies would work best for them. After all, an engaged workforce is a productive one. 

 

Find out more: Submit, monitor and approve flexible working requests from one central dashboard

 

2. Wellbeing and mental health

In such a difficult economic backdrop, it’s no surprise that employees are focusing more on their physical and mental health. In fact, 74% of employers have increased health and wellbeing support over the last two years. The same study found increased productivity to be the biggest behind this increased investment. 

There are clearly many good reasons for prioritising wellbeing and mental health support. But what are the best ways to do that? Here are some options:

 

  • Encourage employees to take time off and disconnect when they do
  • Introduce medical benefits like insurance, subsidised therapy or fitness programmes
  • Offer financial advice and wellbeing support
  • Implement anonymous surveys
  • Train managers on mental health awareness and how to support employees
  • Increase parental, bereavement and caregiver leave 

 

3. Upskilling and reskilling

Skilled employees are more productive at work. As well as developing their own skills, upskilling makes employees more engaged, dedicated and likely to stay with the organisation longer. 

There are multiple ways to prioritise learning and development in a company:

 

  • Offer subscriptions to online learning platforms like LinkedIn Learning, Udemy and others
  • Provide all employees with a learning budget 
  • Create mentoring programmes, where experienced colleagues can share expertise with junior employees outside of the traditional management hierarchy
  • Implement a clear progression pathway for each employee, so everybody knows what they’re working towards and what they need to do to achieve it
  • Have a separate budget for workshops, seminars, conferences and events

 

4. Create a culture of transparency 

“Transparency and employee engagement are intrinsically linked. If you want your team to be driven and engaged at work, you need to show them how their efforts contribute to the wider company mission. 

Good transparency involves giving the whole company visibility over finance and performance, while providing plenty of avenues for anonymous suggestions and feedback.”

Improved employee engagement has a direct impact on productivity. In fact, one study suggests that high-engagement organisations experienced 23% more productivity than those with low engagement. Promoting a culture of transparency is a great way to increase employee engagement. 

So how can HR teams do this? There are several helpful options:

 

  • Run regular anonymous employee surveys 
  • Share company financial performance updates
  • Create clear salary bands for all levels of the organisation
  • Encourage 360-degree performance reviews, so employees get feedback from colleagues as well as managers
  • Implement an Employee New Promoter Score (eNPS) 

 

5. Streamline processes with the right tech 

It’s also worthwhile considering how you can streamline the everyday processes that your company and HR team rely on. First and foremost, this involves a range of different solutions designed to help people work better together, both in-person and remotely:

 

  • Collaboration tech, eg Microsoft Teams, Slack, Yammer or a company intranet
  • Project management solutions, eg Monday.com, Asana or Trello
  • Saas file storage, e.g.Dropbox, Google Workspace, OneDrive or SharePoint 

 

As well as these options, it’s also helpful to invest in HR software. The right HR tech can provide self-service options that allow employees to handle tasks like holiday requests, updating personal information or downloading important documents.

This provides a better level of HR support for the whole workforce, while reducing the burden on the team that needs to deliver it.

 

6. Invest in performance management

“Annual objectives can’t keep up with the rapid pace of the world today – what made sense in January as an objective is most likely to be entirely irrelevant by December.

Another reason we know this doesn’t work is that, come appraisal time, you’ll find managers and employees asking for copies of their objectives, as they’ve forgotten where they’ve been saved or even what they agreed as objectives (because it was that long ago).

Realistically, objective-setting needs to be done regularly.”

- Lucy Adams, CEO at Disruptive HR

Performance management is another key way to get the best out of your team. This involves giving employees of all abilities the targets, training and support they need to deliver in the workplace. Here are some ideas of what that looks like:

 

  • Require all managers to have regular one-to-one meetings with their direct reports
  • Ensure targets and goals are regularly set, monitored and reviewed
  • Establish a culture of continuous feedback so employees get support and direction outside of formal appraisals
  • Create a progression pathway for each employee, ideally with a proposed job title, salary, timescale and specific targets that need to be hit 
  • Ask all managers to document one-to-one meetings, including feedback given and targets set

Staying profitable in uncertain times

Today, inflation is trending downwards and the economic picture is slowly stabilising. There’s every chance that the next few years will be smoother for SMEs. But nothing is guaranteed - and there are profound challenges remaining for businesses of all shapes and sizes. 

If businesses want to stay profitable and productive, it’s important to prepare for challenging times. With the tips in this blog, you’ll have plenty of ideas for how you can create a more resilient, productive and competitive business.  

One option is to invest in HR software. This can help you provide a more efficient level of HR service, while improving the employee experience and reducing the admin burden on your HR team.

 

Matt

Author: Matt Rooke

Matt is a freelance tech writer and content manager who specialises in HR and cybersecurity. Over his seven-year career, he's created content of all shapes and sizes for brands such as Dropbox, Microsoft, Heimdal, Learnerbly, NTT, IFS, and many others. His goal is to translate complex topics into straightforward, tangible and practical advice. When not writing, you can usually find Matt geeking out over languages, music or politics.

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