Why is the health and wellbeing of your staff important?

“Look after your employees and your employees will look after your business”

This statement has been known to organisations for decades (or at least since workers rights became a little more prominent).

A good leader knows that in order to work towards success, you need to have support from inspired, knowledgeable professionals to encourage behaviours that drive the organisation’s vision.

However, many leaders forget that basic needs of their staff need to be met in order for these professionals to operate at maximum capacity – Your team need to be happy, motivated and healthy!

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Many directors and CEO’s throughout the UK have a true passion for their business and a genuine feeling of responsibility towards their organisation, as well as the staff that help to make it work.

However, in difficult times, when cash flow isn’t quite balanced and money is tight, people can change…

The boss that was once an advocate for positive attitudes and working together to make progress, all of a sudden becomes the devil in disguise and makes the lives of their subordinates the equivalent to living in the pits of hell.

When push comes to shove and there are demons at your door, some bosses go into self-preservation mode and as a result choose to disregard the potential impact of their decisions on customers and suppliers, as well as staff.

This isn’t the case 100% of the time, but most of you will have heard horror stories of this occurring and been disgusted by the attitude of those involved.

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By now we all know the business environment is by no means smooth sailing and we all venture into stormy weather at some point.

Businesses are very much like ships at sea, and like any ship, your business requires a captain to ensure it reaches its destination.

You are the leader of your vessel, which means it’s your challenge to navigate your way through the rough and stormy seas whilst keeping your crew safe. As part of this responsibility, it’s up to the captain to identify when things are not running smoothly.

A great captain can identify when their ship is running into dangerous waters or even predict when their crew is under pressure. Perhaps at this point of realisation, the captain must act quickly to solve the problem, restore employee productivity and improve business performance; so that their ship can stay afloat.

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When we hear the term ‘coaching’, many will think of sports coaches who teach, motivate and inspire their team to achieve more on the pitch.

With this in mind, perhaps, business coaching is not far from sports coaching. Think of the manager as the coach and the players are the employees.

Organisations now require a new breed of manager that acts as a coach for their team and their players.

Creating a winning environment

Coaches and managers have many important things in common; teamwork, motivation and people management. Therefore, it’s fair to say that professional sports coaches provide great role models for managers.

Essentially, the parallels between the sporting world and the business world are numerous.

But, how important is coaching and mentoring to your organisation?

Well, a staggering “93% of managers need training in coaching employees”

And “30% of employees said they had benefited from the advice and guidance of a mentor”

This means that organisations need to start focusing on ‘coaching their managers’ to get the most out of and retain their best employees.

So, where do you start?

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Like many things in life, when it comes to project management the success of your project begins way before the work gets underway. For this reason, choosing the appropriate project management framework for your requirements is an important decision in any project.

In an ideal world, all our projects would run smoothly. Unfortunately, in reality, that’s not quite the case. A staggering 97% of organisations believe project management is critical to business performance and organisational success.

So, how can you be confident that your project is managed effectively? There are lots of frameworks out there and the decision is not always an easy task.

Have you ever heard of the analogy oranges and onions?

If not, I’ll explain… Read more…..

While growth is exciting for UK businesses, there’s no question that the world in which we operate is becoming more chaotic and challenging.

Let’s face it, we are all being challenged to face change management in all aspects of the businesses. What many organisations fail to understand is how the power of growth is impacting their leadership styles.

The question you need to ask yourself is how is your leadership style affected by growth? And, are you a HERO or a VILLAIN, in this case?

All heroes have different powers, and all leaders have different leadership styles. But it’s for you to understand if the style you have adopted makes you a hero or a villain? Read more…..

Do you remember building all sorts of things with LEGO as a Kid?

In my architect days, I was always trying to build bigger and aim higher, to only find out that my crafted skyscrapers would fall over without a strong foundation. Like LEGO, any business without a strong digital foundation will fall short of reaching new heights!

To build a stable foundation, you need to address four unique building blocks: Developing personas, a responsive website, visibility in search, and standing out through social media.

Think of these components as the base of your skyscraper, without one, it will result in the whole building falling over. With that being said, having a strong online presence is a crucial component to the foundation of your brand awareness strategy, if this is done correctly you can sit back and watch your skyscraper grow higher and higher.

So the question is how do you create awareness? Well my building days aren’t quite over yet, here are four fundamental building blocks to success…

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Coaching and mentoring is an integral part of the development of any business and its staff.

It can even help to support the growth of your business.

A study found that employee retention is actually 25% higher for those who have engaged in company-sponsored mentoring. This makes coaching and mentoring an especially attractive prospect for those struggling to capture and keep the best talent in the industry.

With this in mind, we have created this process to follow for effective coaching and mentoring practices in your organisation.

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Are you a leader or a manager?

When you think about leadership and management, you may struggle to define a discernible difference between the two.

This subject has baffled many business people for years, so let us shed some light on the situation…

The difference between a leader and a manager is that anyone within a business can be a leader. A leader doesn’t necessarily have to be in a management or senior position within an organisation.

Leaders are followed by others because of their personality and influence, not their job title. This can make them extremely valuable and a great tool for managers to harness to produce results.

Good managers often possess a certain degree of leadership skills, otherwise they wouldn’t be in their position. However, the best managers refine their leadership skills so that they are able to cover all of their bases and reach organisational targets effectively.

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Management is becoming an increasingly demanding role that has developed to cover a wider range of topics and responsibilities.

A good manager has an understanding of all key operating principles of the business that they work in. This can range from HR activities to organisational strategy and financial planning – the level of involvement really is endless.

This is why it is essential for managers to brush up on their skills in all areas of their organisation and stay ahead when it comes to the best practices. In order to do this, you need to continuously develop yourself and share your experiences.

One way to achieve this is to attend up to date skill workshops every couple of years to make sure that you are being as effective as you can be.

With this in mind, we have created this list of things that managers need to focus on in order to stay ahead and remain a valuable asset to the business that they work for.

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