How can benefits help make my business stronger?
As a small business owner, you’ve signed on to wear many hats in your day-to-day operations: manager, accountant, customer service… maybe even occasional therapist. It’s a balancing act, but if you’ve been able to master it, congratulations! That’s no small feat.
While many small businesses prove that a job or service can be well executed with a small team, limited resources or management-level staff can often provide owners or managers unique obstacles in the unexpected or unprecedented issues that don’t necessarily suggest a regular Monday morning matter.
Benefits programs like the Chambers Plan, designed for small businesses, recognize that these organizations don’t always have access or can’t afford to have a team of business specialists on retainer to help deal with unexpected problems that require an expert opinion.
In addition to stable, comprehensive health benefits for employees, benefit plans with a Business Assistance Service (BAS) provide small business owners access to professional accounting, counselling, legal, and human resource experts who better understand challenges more regularly faced by small business owners.
Business Assistance Services enable employers to reach out to what could be considered a tailored “A team” of professionals for impromptu advice, one-off internal situation solutions or counselling, or management operations coaching to support a more efficient work environment for business owners and their staff.
Even without a designated Human Resources professional on the team, most business owners are still in the business of humans, so when facing a technical HR issue, like termination processes and overtime pay or legislative/labour law concerns, business assistance services can provide business owners with answers confidentially to ensure they’re properly adhering to rules and regulations.
While the professional landscape has been evolving for decades, something I’m particularly keen on is the recent upward trend of supporting employee mental health and work-life balance.
In the past, I think it was much more common for executives to notice decreased productivity or increased absence and view it as a cause for termination. But when we look at the challenges that are affecting today’s working population, we must establish if a more empathetic approach could be utilized.
When an employee is suddenly consistently absent from work, or underperforming in their day-to-day tasks, there is a strong probability that a personal issue is the cause.
With Business Assistance Services, owners now have the resources available to help employees deal with situations affecting performance, through face-to-face counselling with a trained professional. By meeting employees where they are, we can establish healthier work environments, better retention, and stronger job satisfaction.
It’s normal to feel exhausted at the end of the workday, but if you’re struggling to manage and feel you’ve exhausted your options, or that help is simply financially out of reach, a benefits plan like the Chambers Plan and Business Assistance Services may be a huge perk to help your business grow.
