{"id":2787,"date":"2021-02-03T09:49:20","date_gmt":"2021-02-03T09:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/?p=1337305"},"modified":"2021-02-03T09:49:20","modified_gmt":"2021-02-03T09:49:20","slug":"5-tips-for-leaders-on-how-to-take-stock-and-get-businesses-ready-for-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=2787","title":{"rendered":"5 tips for leaders on how to take stock and get businesses ready for 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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As a strange year drew to a close, I thought it was about time I sat down and went over what exactly had gotten me and my team through these unprecedented times. <\/span>Not only was there a pandemic, but for us running businesses in the UK or with a presence there, we\u2019ve also had to contend with the dreaded B-word<\/em>. <\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been working a long time on automation and simplifying the process of running a business. Over the course of my career<\/span>, I\u2019ve learned a thing or two about how to improve businesses, but I\u2019ve never had to overcome as many challenges and learn as much as I had to in 2020 \u2014 and I guess the same goes for you. <\/span><\/p>\n

So here are my top five lessons of 2020 and how you can best prepare yourself and your team for 2021.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Keep track of what helped you last year, and what didn\u2019t<\/b><\/h2>\n

2020 was weird, in every sense of the word. One upside to the chaos is that, for better or worse, almost every aspect of our working lives has been stress tested. <\/span><\/p>\n

Working remotely, working with tighter budgets, and with less communication \u2014 we now know the true limits of what we can do. A lot of things have gone wrong, but this has also meant we\u2019re pretty sure about the things that <\/span>do<\/span><\/i> work. <\/span><\/p>\n

Before you put 2020 to bed and never think about it again, I think it\u2019s important to reflect on the processes, tactics, and attitudes that helped you glean success from a challenging year \u2014 it\u2019s likely that you\u2019ll be relying on them again in 2021. <\/span><\/p>\n

Likewise, you should also examine everything that fell by the wayside and wasn\u2019t missed. Tedious meetings and procedures that you scrapped and coped just fine without? I won\u2019t be bringing them back, and you shouldn\u2019t either. <\/span><\/p>\n

2. Reappraise your communication<\/b><\/h2>\n

Perhaps the most obvious change remote working has brought is a radical difference in the way your teams communicate. Home-working is here to stay, and as we move towards what will hopefully be a settled hybrid of working from home and the office, you may start to see clashes between the two. <\/span><\/p>\n

As we move further into 2021, I feel it\u2019s important we remain considerate of other people\u2019s time and wellbeing, and the easiest way to do that is to communicate clearly. <\/span><\/p>\n

This might mean remembering to check Slack even when you\u2019re in the office, or reducing the number of video chat and IM services you use. We\u2019ve all raced to adopt new tech platforms out of necessity, but in the long run, it\u2019s important that we restore a sense of order and simplicity to the way we communicate as teams.<\/span><\/p>\n

3. Embrace effective automation<\/b><\/h2>\n

I\u2019m definitely biased on this one, but automation might just become your business\u2019 best friend for saving time. The important thing to remember will be that you can\u2019t just switch it on and leave it. <\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, automating those boring expense reports that nobody wanted to do may feel amazing, but are you keeping track of all the time it\u2019s saved? Machine learning has certainly reached fantastic heights in recent years, but it still needs a helping human hand. <\/span><\/p>\n

For example, we know that our customers save an average of 11.5 hours per month by automating their expense processes \u2014 but this time is abstract, and doesn\u2019t just arrive on their doorstep. So while it\u2019s great to reap the benefits of automation, make sure you get to know its ins and outs, and how you can reinvest the time it saves to grow other parts of your business.<\/span><\/p>\n

4. Encourage autonomy<\/b><\/h2>\n

My personal highlight of 2020 was seeing how well my team at Pleo has coped with new responsibilities thrust upon them in challenging circumstances. <\/span><\/p>\n

So many of the team have taken on additional duties and thrived. <\/span>While this has sometimes occurred out of necessity, it\u2019s always produced positive results. I\u2019ve always encouraged autonomy, so to see it work during times of great stress was a real success in my eyes. <\/span><\/p>\n

It won\u2019t always work, and you <\/span>have <\/span><\/i>to offer support alongside independence, but if you encourage employees to apply creative and pragmatic thinking to \u2018on the fly\u2019 situations, you\u2019re likely to see far more positives than negatives. <\/span><\/p>\n

5. Plan for uncertainty<\/b><\/h2>\n

Finally, there\u2019s no need to reinvent the wheel for this one, but it\u2019s really important. The next few years will be challenging financially, even if our social and working lives return to something that resembles normality. <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s tempting to revert to type and coast after such a hectic year, but if you set regular check-ins and consultations with your team on performance, markets, and procedures, you\u2019ll be in a much better place for it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Your audiences and clients are in exactly the same boat as you, so if you\u2018re set up to work around the changes in their lives as well as your own, you\u2019ll build their trust and confidence in your abilities and offerings as a business. And don\u2019t forget to continue building that roadmap either. <\/span><\/p>\n

While the next few months are \u2014 and forgive me for saying it \u2014 uncertain, it\u2019s important to still have an end goal to work towards which your employees, clients, and customers can all get behind. Having a vision on where you want to be in a years\u2019 time in a <\/span>hopefully<\/span><\/i> Covid-less world, might just help those small successes seem worth it in the long-run.<\/span><\/p>\n

Published February 3, 2021 \u2014 09:49 UTC <\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a strange year drew to a close, I thought it was about time I sat down and went over what exactly had gotten me and my team through these unprecedented times….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2787"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}