There are some things in life you can procrastinate on and still enjoy smooth sailing. Open Enrollment planning, unfortunately, is not one of them. 

Last installment, we discussed dropping your organization’s time-consuming, manual processes and implementing a Human Resources Information System (HRIS) or Human Capital Management (HCM) platform.

If you find yourself printing out paper to complete any people process at your organization, consider this your official intervention. It’s 2023, my friend. Put. the paper. down.

As HR consultants, one area of expertise is helping businesses navigate the ins and outs of hiring and welcoming new talent. Over the years, we’ve found two things to be true: Every touchpoint a business has with a potential candidate must reinforce the tone and culture the candidate is “buying into,”… and offer letters are too often where businesses miss this mark (womp womp).

In our latest blog post we hammered home (we hope) the importance of regular, standing one-on-one meetings with your direct reports. To read more about why these meetings are so important, check out the last article here.

Hey, want another meeting on your calendar? I’m sure your first reaction is a hard no. Well, what if we told you that a standing one-on-one meeting between a leader and each of their direct reports results in employees that are three times more engaged than employees whose leaders do not check in with them regularly? 

As a small business owner, I understand how ramping up can be extremely rewarding and simultaneously challenging. This experience is a fast track to learning about business and yourself. How do you discover new skill sets you didn’t know you needed? What parts of the business do you want to be involved in? What are the things you’d rather outsource to an expert in that space? 

One leading indicator of a recession is back-to-back quarters of a decline in GDP. Government data last week confirmed a decrease in the second quarter after we already saw a decline in Q1 of 2022. As shared in a recent New York Times article, Harvard economist Jeffrey Frankel said, “A month ago, I was writing that it was very unlikely that we are in a recession. If I had to write that now, I would take out the ‘very.’” 

As much as 70% of a company’s operating budget can be allocated to labor costs alone. The sheer size of this line item, paired with the rapid pace at which salaries are increasing for hard-to-fill roles, is enough to leave any employer second-guessing decisions on pay – and is all the more reason to have a well-thought-out compensation strategy in place to guide you.

A certification in Human Resources isn’t required to launch a business, and yet every employer who leads a team of two or more will face HR challenges throughout the lifespan of their organization. It’s not only a given but a major cause of stress for many owners. According to a recent study by Xero, managing staff is the number one stressor for small business owners (42%) – ahead of admin tasks (35%) and even feeling personally responsible for the success of the company (31%). 

New Hanover County shared a new report on April 18, produced by a locally-based firm Greenfield, about the current status, challenges, and potential of economic development in our region. It contains plenty of information local employers should be aware of, but the length of the report – around 100 pages – will likely present a barrier for the typical busy business owner. 

If you’re a business owner, you’ve had at least one healthcare broker reach out to sell you all types of insurance. I’ve learned over the years that a great healthcare broker is invaluable to your business. The second thing I’ve learned is finding the right broker for your business is like dating. There are many fish in the sea, and they all want to be your business’s significant other.