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How to Create a Safe Working Environment for Your Employees

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Safe Working Environment|How to Create a Safe Working Environment for Your EmployeesIf you want your business to do well, it’s imperative to take care of your workers. At the very least, employees should feel safe in the working environment.

There are a lot of ways you can ensure safety in the workplace and below we’ll look at some of the key steps you can take.

Ensure there are dedicated exits

In the event of a fire, legally all businesses need to have dedicated exits. That is, employees should know where they need to go if a fire does break out. So, ensuring there are dedicated exits in the event of an emergency is one of the top safety aspects to focus on.

These dedicated exits should be clearly marked and obviously left unobstructed. As an additional step, you’ll want to consider adding waterspouts installed throughout to quench any fires which do break out.

Carry out a safety assessment

One of the best ways to ensure your employees have a safe working environment, is to carry out a safety assessment. Ideally, this should be done by a professional as they will have the knowledge and the equipment to identify all risks.

You’ll be able to identify risks such as trips and falls, faulty equipment, not wearing PPE and electrical safety. The assessment will provide actionable steps you should take to improve certain safety aspects.

Take a look at your health and safety policy

When was the last time you reviewed your health and safety policy? It is important to regularly review the policy to ensure it is kept fully up to date. If it isn’t and an employee injures themselves, they could make a claim against you. This could leave you significantly out of pocket depending upon how serious the incident is.

If you are ever injured at work, make sure you get the injury checked out by a medical professional and when you do, tell them everything about your injury so you get the best consultation possible and reduce any chances of medical negligence arising.

So, review your health and safety policy and make amendments if needed. You should also make sure every employee has a copy of the policy they can review. If they aren’t aware of the rules because they weren’t provided with any, the responsibility will fall on you.

Overall, it’s important to ensure the workplace is a safe and healthy environment for your workers. The above are just some of the steps you can take to boost safety in the workplace. Don’t forget to focus on cyber security too. Workers are exposed to more than just physical safety risks, their information could also be compromised if you suffer a cyber attack.

8 Ways You Can Improve Your Leadership Skills

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StrategyDriven Professional Development Article |Leadership Skills|8 Ways You Can Improve Your Leadership SkillsAre you considering starting your own business, or wondering how you could get better results from the current business or businesses that you run? If you always seem to get held back and are struggling to get your teams to work exactly how you would want them to, your leadership skills could do with some improvement. Studies show that teams who work under good leaders tend to be more eager to go above and beyond the call of duty when needed, have better relationships with their work and their colleagues, and tend to be more loyal to the companies that they work for. So, there’s every reason to consider improving your leadership skills for the good of your business. Here are just a few ways that you can do just that.

Consider a Coaching Course:

Some people are just naturally good at coaching and guiding others, while others miss the mark completely. If your efforts to train your employees in something new or coach them through tasks are not getting you the results that you want, a course like the BCF Group executive coaching course could be the ideal choice for you. With a BCF Group executive coaching course, you will learn the leadership skills needed to coach your employees in anything and get the reception that you want, with one to one sessions provided either at your workplace or over the phone.

Become a Better Listener:

One of the main differences between someone who is a boss and somebody who is a leader is that a leader knows how to listen to their team. Reflect on your practices so far. If you have been simply telling people what to do and not giving them much of a chance to be heard, then it could be that you’re acting more like a boss than a leader. Active listening skills are absolutely essential to anybody in a leadership position, as they allow you to truly hear what your teams have to say and take it on board.

Act on Feedback:

Simply listening isn’t always enough – being able to act on feedback or give team members concise reasons as to why a suggestion might not be possible right now, is a crucial skill for any good leader. A good leader knows that his or her team is extremely important to the organisation and, as a result, will listen to and try to act on any feedback that is given by them. Whether it’s about small changes to the layout of the office, or suggestions about remote working, leaders never just dismiss their teams’ concerns and suggestions as they know that these are the people they are relying on for success.

Give Autonomy:

A good leader trusts his or her employees to get the job done and makes sure that they are around to offer support and guidance when needed. If you want to become a better leader then the first thing that you will need to do is let go of the idea of micromanaging people or constantly checking up on them to make sure that they are getting the work done. While it might be tempting to do so, this will only create a sense of mistrust in your team and could even lead to individuals resenting you. As a result, you’re less likely to cultivate a sense of loyalty among your team, and could even see a bigger rate of turnover among employees.

Inspire By Action:

A boss will stay in their office all day and tell others what to do; on the contrary, a good leader inspires their team to do their best through their own actions. Whatever you want your team to do, make sure that you are demonstrating this to them in the best way. Even in the workplace, people are inspired by the actions of those who are in authority to them and a leader who demonstrates a genuine passion and verve for their work is always going to get this kind of response from the people that they are in charge of. Show your team exactly how it’s done.

Be Honest and Humble:

Nobody likes having a boss who struggles to admit when they made a mistake. The truth is that we do all make mistakes from time to time and nobody on your team expects you to be perfect. If you mess up, the best thing that you can do is admit it to your team with honesty and integrity, take responsibility, and work together to figure out how you can avoid the same situation happening again. Nobody is going to respect an authority figure who tries to cover up their mistakes or blames others for them.

Communicate:

The best leaders have a thorough understanding of good communication skills and just how important they are to the workplace. Not only do they clearly communicate tasks and instructions to their teams, but they also encourage their teams to improve communication between themselves and provide them with the tools to do so. This could mean giving teams more time to get up to speed at the beginning of each day or providing remote teams with the best communications tools to get the job done while working from home.

Keep Learning:

A good leader knows that there’s never going to be a point where they know everything. No matter how experienced or successful you become, there’s always going to be something that you don’t know and somebody that you can learn something new from. In fact, you may find yourself learning new things from people who are further down the chain of command from yourself. Good leaders never feel embarrassed that they didn’t know something or resent others for knowing more than them; they appreciate the opportunity to learn more and have the utmost respect for the knowledge of others.

Whether you want better results for your existing business or want to get your new business started out on the right foot, the best place to start is by improving your own leadership skills.

Weather the Storm of Constant Change by Strengthening 3 Balance Sheets

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Finances Article |Balance Sheet|Weather the Storm of Constant Change by Strengthening 3 Balance SheetsThe COVID-19 crisis has put an exclamation point on the idea that we live in a world of perpetual whitewater. Whether caused by a pandemic, an economy in free fall, an unforeseen change in the competitive business environment or a problematic geopolitical issue, the world in which we operate is volatile and unpredictable. Success, even mere survival, hinges on being prepared and nimble enough to adapt to rapidly changing conditions.

Everyone wonders when we will get to the “new normal.” It may be preferable to call it the “next normal.” Whatever becomes normal as we progress through COVID-19 is just temporary — like after 9/11 or the financial crash of 2008, there will be another major disruption following in the not-too-distant future. We need to evolve amidst an on-going sequence of next normals without capsizing.

How do you survive, or even thrive, in a world of continuous turbulence and change? The organizations that have best weathered the COVID-19 storm entered it with strong balance sheets in three functions: Not only do they have a strong financial balance sheet, they also have strong balance sheets with their team members and strong balance sheets with their customers.

Regardless of what the future looks like, to be prepared and to weather the storm of perpetual change, you must prudently steward all three balance sheets. Navigating through the next normal requires that you:

1. Have a plan. The plan must include both your purpose and your strategy.

Purpose creates the True North for the organization — what you aspire to contribute. People want to contribute to something bigger than themselves. Your purpose defines what that something is. Purpose attracts talent and aligns and energizes effort. What is the organization’s higher calling? Why does your organization exist? Why does your organization matter?

Strategy defines how your organization positions itself in the marketplace to create unique value for your target customers. What do you provide or do differently that causes customers to buy from you versus anyone else?

2. Execute your plan. You can’t just have a plan; you have to execute your plan — and most organizations don’t do that well. Some 75 to 80 percent of organizations fail to achieve the results they expect from their strategies.

In a rapidly changing world, execution is critical to survival. It’s vital to maximizing your results and building your triple balance sheet. The ability to execute your organizational strategy smoothly and successfully is what provides the financial, human and reputational capital you need to navigate the next change and to be able to invest in adapting quickly to the next, next normal.

To execute effectively, you must align the actions of everyone in the organization to the purpose and strategy. This means:

  • Having the right people in the right roles with the right capabilities. Think through the performance in each current role, the potential for future roles and the capabilities that need to be developed for both current and future roles. Then, connect that assessment to development efforts that help people build the capabilities you’ll need for success in the future.
  • Aligning your systems, structures, processes and culture to the purpose and strategy. For example, how well do the compensation, rewards and recognition and promotions systems in your organization align with your strategy?
  • Keeping a scorecard that drives performance. Ensure scorecards with quantitative measures of performance, results and trends over time are visible and available to everyone in the organization. This allows them to make adjustments mid-course that can affect the outcome.
  • Following-up and following-through. To both generate learning and create rigorous accountability for performance and for living the values of the organization, schedule regular updates to analyze performance gaps and adjust the plan for moving forward.

3. Just lead, dammit! Leaders deliver results by fully engaging their teams in the effort. They build organizations of people passionate about and wanting to contribute their best to the company every day. In order to build a strong balance sheet with their teams, great leaders forge deep connections to their team members. They:

  • Communicate often and openly. With rapid changes in the environment, leaders need to communicate often and openly. Failure to do so creates a vacuum that people will fill, often by making stuff up. Leaders should convey a realistic picture of the dynamic environment of the market where conditions are likely to change rapidly.
  • Create dialogue, not diatribe: One-way, top down communication stifles the kind of multidirectional communications required to fully understand and adapt to rapidly changing circumstances. As a leader, you can’t possible have all the answers — too many unknowns and even the “knowns” can change. It’s critical to be clear about what you do and what you don’t know.
  • Empathize with their team’s point-of-view. Constant change can put people on edge. Show sensitivity to the emotional and real challenges individuals on the team face. Hear the question behind the question, or the key point behind what team members say.
  • Are authentic. People want their leaders to be real. They appreciate honesty, even if it’s painful or upsetting. Being authentic builds trust, which is vital for ensuring that your organization is strong and resilient. Most importantly, it sets the right example for others to emulate.

4. Build resilience. Mike Tyson famously said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

Regardless of how good your plan is, or how effectively you execute, you’re going to get punched in the mouth! In a world of perpetual whitewater, you have to be prepared for the next punch, the next wave, the next rapid or the next life-threatening obstacle.

Thriving through an endless stream of “next normals” requires that organizations are tough enough to adapt regardless of how difficult the circumstances. Resilient organizations:

  • Have strong, consistent core values. Values like integrity, respect and trust provide stability amidst the upheaval and shape a culture that enables everyone to take action in an environment of uncertainty.
  • Generate trust. Leaders must believe and trust that everyone will act in the best interest of the organization, and team members must trust and believe in their leaders and the organization as a whole. This is critical to enabling the kind of dialogue necessary to lead through uncertain times. With trust, people closest to the challenges are given the responsibility and latitude to act without waiting for direction from above, where leaders often have less information about the conditions on the ground.
  • Constantly learn. Rapid change requires constant experimentation in how to adapt to that change. Instilling responsibility throughout the organization often results in mistakes and errors as people learn what works and what doesn’t. Resilient organizations have a “fail fast, learn fast” mentality that allows them to adapt to change faster than others.
  • Foster accountability. People perform their best in an environment in which results matter. Accountability reinforces whichever results matter. And, there must be accountability for playing within the core values of the organization, or people quickly learn that they don’t matter, which, in turn, erodes the fundamental trust necessary to create success.

Being prepared for the “next normal” requires building your balance sheet financially and with your team and your customers. To do so, you have to have a great plan for success, execute that plan effectively and constantly work to build a resilient organization. None of this is easy in a highly competitive, rapidly changing environment. But the reward for getting it close to right is earning the opportunity to adapt again when the next wave hits.

About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor |Sean RyanSean Ryan is a world-renowned business consultant, speaker, trainer and executive coach. As the founder of Whitewater International Consulting, he has worked internationally with companies such as Disney, Nucor Steel, FedEx and Nestle Waters of North America/Perrier Group of America. With more than two decades of industry experience, Sean is highly regarded for his ability to guide organizations through complex transformational change in what he describes as “a world of perpetual whitewater”. His new book is Get in Gear: Seven Gears that Drive Strategy to Results (Productivity Press, Aug. 20, 2020). Learn more at https://www.wwici.com/get-in-gear.

4 Things You Need To Know Before Pursuing An E2 Visa

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StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals Article |E2 Visa|4 Things You Need To Know Before Pursuing An E2 VisaThere are millions of people around the world who choose the make the USA their home every year. Some people will stay in the USA for a year or two before moving on again. However, the allure of living in America and becoming an American draws a lot of investors. Your long-term plans will determine the kind of documentation that you need to obtain to live and work in the USA legally.

What Is The E2 Visa?

For investors who simply want to do business in the USA without committing to a relocation, the E2 visa will permit you to work for a nominated company in the United States. This company can be an existing business or one that you start yourself.

You can save yourself a lot of time and stress by ensuring that you have all your ducks in a row before you start filing paperwork. Let’s take a look at the key requirements for an E2 visa and how you can ensure you meet them.

Make Sure Your Country Qualifies

The first thing that you need to check before you pursue an E2 visa is whether your country has a suitable relationship with the US. To apply for the E2 visa, your home nation (the country that issued your passport) needs to have a treaty with the USA. There are currently around 80 nations that have such an agreement with the USA.
Most of the nations that the USA is closely-aligned with have an E2 agreement in place. However, there are some notable exceptions. For example, neither India nor Brazil has an E2 treaty.

Invest Appropriately

One of the main requirements for applying for an E2 visa is that you have already made a substantial investment in the USA. Ideally, you should aim to invest at least $100,000 in an existing business to show that you are serious. There is no investment threshold that you must meet. However, the less money you have invested, the higher the chance that the authorities will reject your application.

Consider Other Avenues

Before you pull the trigger on any investments or other paperwork that will cost you money, you should make certain that the E2 is for you. Immigration Business Plan is a business that helps immigrant investors to navigate the murky waters of their visa application. As well as helping you to write an e2 visa business plan, Immigration Business Plan can also help you decide if the e-2 visa business plan in the best route for you or not. If there is a better pathway for you to get to America, IBP can help you identify it.

Emigrating to the USA can be a notoriously difficult process. Even if you aren’t aiming for full citizenship, finding the right kind of visa and ensuring that you meet all the requirements can be enough of a headache to deter a lot of people. If you are in any doubt, consult with an expert. They can help you to identify the best route and how to take it.

Why London Businesses Should Think About Making the Switch to Green Cleaning

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Why London Businesses Should Think About Making the Switch to Green CleaningAs individuals, we know the importance of being as green as possible. Utilising reusable plastic bottles, avoiding fast fashion and making the investment into electric and hybrid cars. However, it is businesses that are the largest to have negative impacts on our environment and they need to know how and why to make the change.

While paperless offices and carpooling colleagues are becoming the norm, many do not know the importance of green cleaning in the workplace. London is home to thousands of businesses of every size and even if just a fraction made the switch to green commercial cleaning London services, it will be a fantastic start. If all made the switch, we would begin to witness a huge difference to our planet.

Now that keeping a workplace clean is more crucial than ever before, here is an assessment of the benefits of switching to green cleaning within a professional environment to the business, employees and visitors.

Green Cleaning Produces The Same Results

A common misconception is that green cleaning products just don’t work as well as chemical cleaners.

This is usually down to the lack of soap bubbles generated during lathering. In reality, phosphates are added to conventional cleaners to generate these bubbles to give the appearance of better results.

Green cleaning products can produce the same effects and commercial cleaning companies will provide their staff with full training on how to get the best outcome out of these products.

It is also a frequent error that people believe you need harsh chemicals to kill germs and bacteria. Many green cleaning products have been proven to kill the common cold and flu virus, leading to staff and visitors being protected against any bugs going around the office.

It Can Increase Employee Productivity

If helping the planet isn’t a concern of company directors, ensuring top productivity from their staff certainly is.

Chemical cleaners can reduce air quality in the workplace, especially in areas where air conditioning replaces open windows as toxic fumes circulate constantly.

In turn, this can reduce the performance of cognitive tasks among staff members.

It has been revealed that those who worked within a green office space performed these tasks at a rate of 61% higher than those who did not.

Within these green offices, when ventilation was doubled, the results increased to 100%. Making this small switch to a green cleaning supplier can make a massive difference in the work produced by colleagues.

Money-Saving

With an economic crisis just around the corner, it is imperative that cost-saving solutions are found in every area of the business.

Consumable products quickly add up and can be a large factor to the monthly invoices. Swapping paper hand towels for reusable, washable one is just one example.

While this initial cost may be more than their disposable counterpart, this will save costs in the budget which will eradicate the monthly delivery costs of these products.

During the pandemic, staff members are now requesting more cleaning products to use within their personal space, not wanting to wait until the end of each day for commercial cleaners to see their desks, phones and keyboards.

Businesses are under an obligation to provide these and it is generating significant costs. Green cleaning products don’t have to be purchased from a supplier, they can instead be created from common household ingredients. Despite the potentially large expenses, these ingredients will go a long way and will last far longer than the pre-made products.

Looks After Employee Health

Conventional cleaners can be detrimental to the everyday health of colleagues and Monoethanolamine is a chemical that is commonly used in many cleaning products.

If inhaled, this then causes inflammation of the lungs and brings on attacks and even be fatal. For this reason, this ingredient is regulated within schools and hospitals, but there is nothing in place for other workplaces.

Few cleaning products openly declare this on their packaging, which means that staff who are feeling the effects of this may not even know why.

Nowadays, there is no excuse for London businesses to not make the switch to green cleaning, it is cost-effective, protects the health of all those within the workspace and ensures employees are producing the best work possible, also leading to happy clients and potentially higher revenue.