3 Ways To Help Your Business Stay Afloat Through Tough Times

It is sad but true that tough times come to every business. This means that you need to be ready for these dips in fortune and that you are prepared in more ways than one.

As you’ve probably guessed, this can get expensive and you might even feel overwhelmed by the task at hand, so much so that you might end up wondering what the point is in even bothering to try in the first place. Some would consider this a defeatist’s view, however, and they will also tell you that no business lasts long with a defeatist in the command chair. 

So, if you are going to survive tough times, you are going to have to prioritize. This means that you are going to need to figure out what you need the most and dedicate part of your company’s budget towards that.

While it will be vitally important to get this right, it is not an easy task, and you are almost certainly going to need some help. However, the good news is that there are a large number of services available to help you with what you need. 

This can feel a little like traversing a minefield, but there are a lot of services out there willing to help you and it is just a case of finding the right one for your business.

You have to remember that just because a service is successful and highly praised among many of your fellow companies, it does not mean to say that it is any good for your business at all. You might even find that it is quite the opposite and they are an expensive waste of your time. 

That said there are some key areas that you need to be looking at and targeting these in the right way can help your business stay afloat in tough times.

You are going to need to prepare properly for accidents in the workplace

Nobody wants them to happen, but you need to prepare for accidents within the workplace. Your warehouse might be as safe as a baby’s cot, but one negligent employee could turn it into a danger zone.

You need to be careful with how your business operates with all of your workers, and you need to be careful that you aren’t creating unnecessary risks by cutting corners and causing potential harm to your business. 

You need to make sure that you put up security cameras and make sure that your staff are fully notified of the dangers of the machinery that they are operating. Unfortunately, human error is a problem, which is why you should also be allowing your workers to know about the rights of Worker’s Compensation. 

This means that your employees are allowed to take your business to court for making them work in unsafe conditions. This can be less than ideal, but you need to be supportive of your employees’ welfare and, unfortunately, sometimes this is the best way to do it.

You need to make sure that your employees are aware of the best accident attorneys in your area, such as therawlinsfirm.com, to make sure that they get the best support that they can in court, even if you are confident that you are in the right. 

You need to make sure that they feel that you are supportive of them and that you are on their side. This is not only a method that you can use to increase employee trust and loyalty, but it is also a way that you can help protect your business from negligent employees as much as possible, as the vast majority of your workers’ will try their best every day to keep these around them, and themselves, safe. 

You are going to need to prepare for online incidents 

You are going to need to prepare your business for online threats as well as physical ones. This is really important to the longevity of your business, and the strength of your cyber security can also have a huge effect on how you run your business, your employee’s faith, and your customers’ faith in what you do.

This can be a big step (and an expensive one) but it is something that you need to do to keep your business’s sensitive data and information safe from those with malicious intent. 

As part of this, you are going to need to make sure that you are looking into investing in disaster recovery and business continuity planning, that you are making sure that your business’s Cloud is safe, as well ensuring that your employees have access to high-quality end-user training.  

This is because you need to make sure that your employees are well protected against external threats, as it is imperative for your business and is not something that should be taken lightly as a cyber-attack can and will be the end of your business if you remain defenceless.

What can you do to help prevent these issues from happening?

Although it has been touched on above, you need to know what you are dealing with and how you can manage it. These are wide areas and need more than one solution, and you should be seriously thinking about how to prevent these things from happening in the way that suits your budget the best. 

However, this is difficult, and you need to know your business and your employees well to be able to make sure that you are making decisions in your company’s best interest, not with what is the cheapest and most convenient option.

Here are some methods that you might want to use to help your business remain protected against these sorts of tough and turbulent times. 

1. You need to invest in the management within your business

Investing in management means investing in improving the organization. Good organization is imperative to businesses both big and small, and you need to make sure that your business has the best it can be.

Not only does better organization mean better communication within the company, (which leads to better ideas, better results, and higher morale) but it also means that you can keep track of where everything is. 

You can find things easily without needing to dig around or ask anyone. It helps teams work together more cohesively and combat problems with greater ease, as well as make files easier to protect. You might even need to invest in managerial staff to take some of the weight from your shoulders.

If you were to organize all of your employees on your own and monitor their every move, you wouldn’t be able to run your business, you would only be able to do the bare minimum. Managers can act as a buffering point and will manage their own little teams which can help your whole business become more productive and far easier to run. 

2. You need to invest in the training in your business 

Training is a vitally important part of running a business. It might seem like an unnecessary expense, but it can be a preventive measure for any number of unwitting but potentially business-destroying acts on the part of your employees.

For example, you need to make sure that you are investing in End-User training, which is really important for your business’s protection against cybercrime. It was touched on a little above, and it is really important for your business to have the protection that this gives on the inside.

You should have training high up on your list of things that you should be investing in any way, and the benefits of training include:

• Increased quality from employees,

• Machinery will probably last longer due to proper and safe handling,

• Less negligent behaviour,

• Employees are more likely to be confident in their work and therefore enjoy it more,

• Your company will be more desirable to work for and more desirable to get work from. 

These are all things that in-house training can do for your business. Doing this can have dramatic effects on your company, and you should fully embrace what it has to offer.

3. You should also be investing in the right software

Investing in the right software allows your business to grow and expand with little restriction of space and resources.

There are a lot of different kinds of software that can help your business go from good to excellent and can help carry it forward over tough periods. For example:

• BI software can help you translate data and make predictions about the correct direction to take your business in,

• HR software can help keep your HR team organized and make their jobs a little easier,

• Project Management Software helps your management staff and also helps increase communication and community within your business,

Investing in helpful software can help your business in many different ways and can keep your confidence levels in your employees and in your business high through times of trouble.

I am Adeyemi Adetilewa, a media consultant, entrepreneur, husband, and father. Founder and Editor-In-Chief of Ideas Plus Business Magazine, online business resources for entrepreneurs. I help brands share unique and impactful stories through the use of public relations, advertising, and online marketing. My work has been featured on the Huffington Post, Thrive Global, Addicted2Success, Hackernoon, The Good Men Project, and other publications.