Business is often a balancing act. You have to spend money to make money, however you don’t want to spend too much or it eats into your profits. However there are lots of money saving techniques companies use which can actually cause you to lose, rather than save money. Here are a few of them.
Outsourcing
This is a double edged sword, as there are lots of great benefits to outsourcing. When you hand over elements of your business to be taken care of by another company you know that the job will be done efficiently, you don’t have to hire additional people on your team. You don’t have to buy additional equipment or larger premises for this bigger team to use, and the company you outsource too is responsible for their own health and safety, hiring and firing and everything else. It’s hassle free for you, however this does come at a cost. Every month the cost of outsourcing will take a chunk out of your profits. In many cases, keeping processes in house is the more effective option. Thanks to great business software you don’t need to hire as many employees as in years gone by so the cost of equipment and larger premises needed for lots of workers won’t be as high as you think. Things like Altium Designer Full will allow your designers to create electronic technology. HR software tackles things like hiring, firing and everything in between meaning you can keep your HR team small. Even accounting software will reduce your need to hire lots of accountants since tedious manual methods are no longer used.
Employees
Speaking of employees, it can be tempting to take on less experienced and therefore cheaper workers to keep costs down in your business, but a minimum wage worker is likely to do a minimum effort job. You might keep down the cost of wages, but you will pay for it with reduced productivity. Your workforce is everything, you need to spend the time (and money) ensuring you have the right people on board in your business. Since advertising, recruiting, interviewing and training can all be expensive, you will want to get this right in the first instance to reduce staff turnover rate. Interview candidates carefully, follow up on their references and get a good understanding of their skills and experience. Offer a good salary and employee benefits, while this will cost you money it will give workers a sense of job security and will mean they are more productive and hardworking for your company. Candidates with higher skills and experience will also need to be paid more, otherwise they could simply go and work for your competitors instead.
Office
You might think that your office is just four walls and a roof, but a dingy office could be massively affecting productivity levels. Sure, a small and cheap office will save you money on rent but you could be making your employees unhappy. Either give it a makeover or hire new premises completely. Psychologists have shown living plants and natural light are both mood boosters and improve productivity at work so this is something to bear in mind. If you can afford it, you could hire an office with floor to ceiling windows. At the very least, position desks close to windows so workers can benefit from the natural light.
