Category: Business Advice

It is important to manage your staff’s salary expectations. Talking about money with your employees can be uncomfortable.

Even when you have good news for an employee, discussing pay can be difficult.

An employee’s performance is inextricably linked to their salary and bonus. However, discussing the two together can lead to the employee

focusing only on the conversation about pay. As such, managers should discuss performance in a separate meeting prior to any discussion about pay or bonuses. This ensures that both conversations are heard clearly by the employee, and expectations can be managed, prior to any conversation about compensation.

When a salary and bonus conversation gets tough, it is often because an employee is not getting the information they need or the manager feels that they can’t answer certain questions. Managers need to have key information to hand such as pay scales for the various roles across the business, details regarding potential for pay increases or promotions and any other key information such as company performance and how this has affected the salary and bonus figures this year etc.

If a salary and bonus conversation is not going well, managers should spend more time listening to the employee in order to understand where they are coming from, what their concerns are etc.

There is often a lot to be gained by managers who are curious when it comes to having tough pay-related conversations. For example, they might learn that an employee feels that their job has not been correctly benchmarked against competitors or the wider market.

More often than not, a challenging conversation around salary and bonus will require a follow up meeting, giving managers an opportunity to come back with more facts and secure a positive outcome with the employee.

If you need assistance on salary expectations within your business, please do not hesitate to get in touch.  Our team of chartered accountants have a wealth of experience in a broad range of sectors, from construction and property to the charity sector. Our team work hard to ensure they create smart and effective tax-efficient solutions for start-ups to optimise growth and help them succeed. If you want to learn more about how the team can help or simply want some start-up advice from a trusted accountant do hesitate to contact us. For more information please do hesitate to contact us on 0161 962 1855. Alternatively you can email us using the form below and we will contact you as soon as possible.

Our fantastic team at A&C Chartered Accountants are here to help.

The word innovation can conjure up images of disruptive developments such as online streaming services or companies such as Uber, but you can still be an innovation champion. Fortunately, innovation doesn’t have to happen on a grand scale to make an impact in your business.

Driving innovation in any business begins with creating and encouraging an innovative and forward-thinking culture to allow your employees to bring new and interesting ideas to the table, and put them into effect. Your employees need to feel free to contribute, to feel their contribution is acknowledged, appreciated and taken into consideration.

You need to break down barriers between management and employees and ensure that there is regular two-way communication. Creating a team of innovation champions can help. Instead of putting innovation on the backburner until an opportunity presents itself (which it might not), task the right people in your business with driving innovation in a proactive manner. If your innovation champions have a particularly heavy workload, perhaps re-allocate some of their roles to allow them time to devote to driving innovation.

When things go well, it is good to celebrate success. However, your innovation champions shouldn’t be afraid to make mistakes. Managers need to help employees to feel comfortable and ready to share.

Good ideas should be recognised but equally, ones that don’t get off the ground should be applauded as something to learn from for the future.

Driving innovation involves focusing on what you do and what products or services you sell to your customers. Customer feedback can be used to drive innovation. Your customers are generally happy to tell you what it is they want from your firm. Perhaps they want flexibility or they really value quick turnaround times. Spend time gathering feedback from your customers and share this with your innovation champions.

From your perspective you don’t ever want to give your customers a reason to go elsewhere. Make this the central focus of your innovation strategy and task your innovation champions with finding new and better ways to keep your customers coming back again and again. Perhaps the solution to the problem lies in doing simple things a little bit better or perhaps you can utilise technology to make your product / service delivery more efficient. Focus on your customers, listen to their feedback and let that feedback drive your innovation strategy and the activity of your innovation champions.

Our team of chartered accountants have a wealth of experience in a broad range of sectors and love nothing more than helping you and your business. Our team work hard to ensure they create smart and effective tax-efficient solutions for start-ups to optimise growth and help them succeed. We offer a wide range of services which are unique to your businesses who are just getting going!

If you want to learn more about how the team can help or simply want some start-up advice from a trusted accountant do hesitate to contact us. For more information please do hesitate to contact us on 0161 962 1855. Alternatively you can email us using the form below and we will contact you as soon as possible.

Our fantastic team at A&C Chartered Accountants are here to help.

Having a good strategy is one thing, executing it well can be a huge challenge.

Many business owners and managers are familiar with the scenario – you arrange a strategy day with your team, capture the outputs and create a strategic plan. Everyone goes back to the office, the strategy paper gets filed and that is the last you see of it until next year’s strategy day. The hardest part of any business strategy is implementationOnce you have created your strategy, you need to start engaging with your organisation. The communication process is key and needs to be two-way. You need to create a mechanism for people in your firm to feed back their view.

Once you have your feedback and have finalised your strategic plan, the next step is to start creating tangible objectives.

Each objective should have a dedicated owner (who is responsible and accountable), a deadline and regular updates on progress towards each goal should be provided at, for example, a monthly meeting.

Tracking and reporting are key components of executing any strategy. Monthly updates should be provided by the people responsible for each objective and should include a quantitative measure of progress and a short commentary to add background information about progress to date, expected timeline for delivery, resources required for the next stage, and so on.

Performance management is also key to successfully implementing your strategy. Your team need to be accountable and you need to create a connection between the strategic objectives of the business and your team member’s day jobs. Each person on your team should have a set of objectives which cascade from the overall company objectives that are set out in your strategy document. Aligning the objectives of each individual with the overall goals of your business ensures that your whole team is working towards the same common goal. You should measure and reward people for their contribution to achieving the firm’s strategy. This encourages the right behaviours among your team.

Executing your strategy isn’t a process. It is about developing a culture in your firm where everyone is working towards a common set of goals. At the end of each year, you should evaluate your strategy, keep the bits that are working well and update those parts that haven’t been so successful.

Our team of chartered accountants have a wealth of experience in a broad range of sectors, from construction and property to the charity sector, and above all are here for you and your business. Our team work hard to ensure they create smart and effective tax-efficient solutions for start-ups to optimise growth and help them succeed. If you want to learn more about how the team can help or simply want some start-up advice from a trusted accountant do hesitate to contact us. For more information please do hesitate to contact us on 0161 962 1855. Alternatively you can email us using the form below and we will contact you as soon as possible.

Our fantastic team at A&C Chartered Accountants are here to help.

Office space is expensive. Do you really need to have a dedicated desk for each and every employee?

Recent years have brought a lot of changes to the office environment, particularly as technology develops and the next generation of employees has come through to management. This new generation of managers brings new thinking about the modern office environment and what it should be.

For example, if a workforce of 100 has, on average, only 80 people in the office on a given day, those 20 empty desks take up space and are not being efficiently utilised. A hefty portion of business overhead is dedicated to office building space and maintenance. By trimming furniture and hardware costs, some of that wasted space can be better used as a meeting or project development space, saving money and benefiting the bottom line.

If your employees hot-desk, they tend to socialise more. Employees who sit beside someone different every day interact more, converse with a greater number of departments, and can find inspiration where it wasn’t possible to before. More interaction with a wider variety of people can lead to greater company cohesion and increased collaboration.

Employees will tend to optimise the space around them for productivity and might select a space that meets their needs for any given day. If they have conference calls on their schedule, they may gravitate towards a small meeting room or less-crowded alcove. If they are collaborating with colleagues on a specific project, they may choose to work in a room with presentation software and large screens, rather than huddling around a single desk.

When your office design allows for employee flexibility, your workers who thrive on mobility and independence are happier and more productive. They will find a way to optimise their office set-up for each and every day.

So, perhaps modern businesses are better off having flexible, open and collaborative offices rather than relying on the more old fashioned approach of assigning each employee a fixed desk. As an added bonus, the business may be able to reduce office overhead costs as office space can be used more efficiently.

We are proud of our offices here at A&C Chartered Accountants. Each team member has a standing desk which also gives staff the option to sit too. If you would like to come into the offices to check it out please feel free to pop in at any time. We offer a wide range of services which are unique to your business. Our team work hard to ensure they create smart and effective tax-efficient solutions for start-ups to optimise growth and help them succeed. If you want to learn more about how the team can help or simply want some start-up advice from a trusted accountant do hesitate to contact us. For more information please do hesitate to contact us on 0161 962 1855. Alternatively you can email us using the form below and we will contact you as soon as possible.

Our fantastic team at A&C Chartered Accountants are here to help.