Many businesses and their employees have surprised themselves with their ability to adapt so swiftly to life in lockdown over the past 12 month. But many simply cannot function until lockdown is relaxed or are at the very least anxious to return to some kind of ‘business as usual’. So, as business owners what exactly should you be thinking about now to ensure that you are ready for when the time comes?
Here’s my top 10 tips on how to prepare your business for post lockdown:
- Assess and plan out how you will cope with social distancing requirements in the workplace. Will this mean staggered start times? Part-time hours? Fewer staff?
- Number of employees. How will your business cope if some employees decide not to return? Or do you need to make redundancies? Unfortunately redundancies are likely to be considered by many business owners and it’s important the right steps are taken in doing so. Here is a quick guide of the redundancy process for those that may need it.
- Formalise new ways of working. Consider revising your internal policies on flexible working and working from home if they have worked well for your business and workforce.
- Recovery of business debts. As businesses slowly ramp up again, look at what is still outstanding and call it in. Debt recovery will be vital for your cash flow and keeping your business afloat. If you need any assistance with this we have a fixed fee debt recovery process and would happily support you in this. You can visit our debt recovery page here for more information.
- Getting paid in the future. Are your payment terms as clear as they could be? Do you need to change them?
- Technology. Would this help your business to cope better moving forward?
- You may feel that you can downsize, or certainly that you need to review your physical premises requirements. Can you get out of your lease early, for example?
- Online presence. Do you need to increase or improve this?
- Business structure. Is this the time to think about a senior director leaving? Or is an MBO a possibility? Or do you want to give your employees more of a stake in the business? Or just formalise arrangements you currently have to avoid ambiguity?
- Get a free business health-check for your company. We can check over certain areas of your business from a legal perspective and provide a report on areas where you can improve your business.
If you would like to book your complimentary business health check, contact me on karen.blakesley@cognitivelaw.co.uk or call me on 01273 284008.