Organizational change can be difficult to implement, posing unique logistical challenges for leaders of all kinds of businesses. And small businesses are no exception.
Besides being time-consuming, change that affects every role in your company entails varying degrees of reluctance, pushback or even rejection from employees at all levels. And if you don’t succeed, you may find the change simply isn’t sustained by your business in the long run.
In fact, 70% of organizational changes fail, according to McKinsey & Company. But why?
It may be due to lack of communication. Or failure to overcome a natural resistance to changing habits. In any case, businesses of every stripe find themselves needing to make big changes at some point.
Fortunately, many leaders have been surprised at the agility and ability to pivot they have seen in their workforce. For small businesses, that agility is especially necessary.
Small business owners often have two key challenges that can become even more burdensome when implementing organizational change.
Opportunity #1: Delegate and stop bottlenecking
It’s not uncommon for small business owners to perform the roles of multiple people, occupying every position from management to maintenance. But with a finite number of hours in a week, some of this may simply be too much.
According to SmallBizTrends, small business owners have at least six areas where they must lead:
- employee staffing and management
- financial matters
- business planning and strategy
- daily operations
- customer service
- sales and marketing
If you find yourself overwhelmed by these varying spheres of responsibility, you’re not alone!
No, really – you’re not alone. Ask yourself these questions to find where you can delegate or outsource some of your entrepreneurial duties, so you can focus on developing your business.
- Do you have employees to whom non-executive-level tasks could be delegated, especially when you are implementing organizational change?
- Are there loyal, effective employees who could be promoted to managerial positions? If you lack the budget for additional full-time staff or pay raises for existing staff, could some of your work be contracted out to freelancers?
- If administrative, HR-type tasks – responsibilities like running payroll, managing benefits, compliance training, background checks, employee PTO accruals, reimbursing expenses and even making direct deposits – make your head spin, we know a solution you should consider.
In pondering these questions, you may find ways to lessen the burden on your shoulders, giving you a heightened ability to focus on the changes at hand.
Opportunity #2: Automate and digitize
In the world of small business, owners and operators are all too familiar with the reality of being constantly “on call.” But we also live in a digital world. Consider the potential of software to streamline or automate tasks that were previously manual, even paper-based.
To take just one process as an example: Moving from printing paper checks to automatic payroll with direct deposit is a simple change that would free up time to put toward other business goals.
And when it comes to employees who may have questions about their benefits or other HR-related information, self-service technology is the answer.
With access to this kind of tech, employees can simply log in to an easy-to-use system, view their own data (benefits information, PTO accruals, etc.) and arrive at the answers themselves. This means peace of mind for them – and more time for small business owners (whose many “hats” often include an HR role) to devote to other, more pressing organizational goals.
Speaking of employee benefits, what comes to mind when you think about your open enrollment process?
An in-person explanation of plans or gathering of physical forms and signatures may not feel too cumbersome if you have a team that can fit in one room. But it takes time that could be spent networking and building your business. And who’s going to take weeks off from prospecting or managing to do that once your company scales to multiple locations and teams?
Before benefits administration cuts into time you could spend developing your business, set your company up for success with digital benefits administration that walks employees through the process and gives them the answers they need, right on their mobile devices.
Next steps
Your world is full of opportunities to make changes, big and small, to continually foster the success of your business. Paycom can help your organization implement meaningful change with software to make your job easier.
Learn more about how to manage change in your organization.
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