Tag Archives: Corporate Business Solutions

5 Tips to Succeed In Your First Year as a Small Business Owner

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We all know that launching your own business may be challenging. Still, it can also be quite rewarding, so let’s be optimistic as you approach your first business anniversary! The end of your first year as a small business owner should be an occasion for celebration if you have a sound business plan, are aware of the environment you operate in, and are prepared to handle any unexpected events that may arise.

Here are the 5 tips to succeed in your first year as a small business owner.

1.   Make a Commitment to Yourself

Business solutions experts like those at www.cbs-cbs.com recommend that it’s crucial that you commit to yourself that you will be in business for the first year when you start your small business. In the first year of operation, the vast majority of enterprises fail.

The first year of a business is indeed the most challenging, particularly for someone who has never owned a business and has no prior experience dealing with staff, bookkeeping, or accounting. However, this is the year when you will pick up the greatest knowledge and wisdom, which will pay you back handsomely in the future. When starting your business, make a commitment to be in business in your first year.

2.   Send Out Invitations to Potential Customers

Creating a brand and marketing awareness strategy is a fantastic idea if you want to draw in more customers.

Here are some tips for hitting the ground running:

  • Make an effort to stand out at conferences and networking gatherings so you may meet new clients and learn about the competition.
  • Think about setting up social media and website profiles for your small business; being present online will make it much easier for people to learn more about you!
  • Another thing to take into consideration is whether you have the resources to fund an advertising campaign. Paid advertising, when done right, could be a terrific way to effectively attract new customers.

3.   Define What Distinguishes You from Others

If you look closely enough, any successful business will probably have something unique about them at its heart. The USP (Unique Selling Point) is a component that gives businesses an advantage over rivals. What does your business brand represent? You may stand apart from the competition because you offer a unique feature or invaluable service that addresses a particular customer need. You may also handle business differently than everyone else. Study what your rivals are doing and ensure you can provide something unique.

4.   Spend Time Building a Curated Business Plan

Your business plan is a place to outline your vision, target market, priorities, distinctive value proposition, funding strategy, product and price plan, and marketing and sales plan. It also serves as a guide for managerial decisions as you start and expand your business.

Your business plan is evidence that you have worked hard to validate your idea, whether you are applying for funding or making a pitch to investors, so take the time to develop a robust foundation.

5.   Make Plans for Success Rather Than Failure

Set your thoughts on huge success when defining the goals of your business, and you will succeed. There are many excellent ideas that become successful because business owners think they will, and just because a business fails doesn’t necessarily indicate the idea wasn’t good. It can imply that the initial baking process wasn’t done properly or that the timing wasn’t perfect for that specific idea. It doesn’t even make sense that many business people envision failure rather than success.

Conclusion

These are the five basic tips to succeed in your first year as a small business owner. While building a successful business in the first year requires a lot of effort and commitment, with these five tips explained in this article, your small business is destined for huge success.

Business 101 – How to Properly Manage A Small Business

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It’s thrilling yet risky to start or manage a new small business in the cutthroat business world. Every day, small businesses are launched by an entrepreneur with a burning desire to tackle a particular need.

Running a business requires more than just having a solid idea. Every company, regardless of size, is constantly worried about management. Every business must have an effective management system to survive.

To make their enterprise a success story, small business owners must be well-equipped with managerial skills and talents. Keep reading to discover helpful techniques for effectively managing a small business.

1.  Proper Time Management Is the Key

You should be aware that time is your most valuable resource as a small business owner. Money can be lost and then recovered. However, you cannot recover time.

Every day, keep a proper record of the activities you spend your time on and aim to eliminate any that are not producing or contributing significantly to your organization. This can help you identify your biggest time wasters.

The 80/20 Pareto Principle rule is a good technique for deciding where to invest more time. The 80/20 rule essentially states that only 20% of your efforts will provide 80% of your results.

2.  Have a To-Do List and Be Organized

You must maintain extreme organization as a small business owner. To help you stay on track, develop the practice of making a to-do list. It’s pretty simple to manage and keep track of daily activities, including those of your staff, with a To-Do list.

Three categories should be considered while creating your to-do list: one for tasks you must complete today, another for things that require your attention but can wait. Create a final category for quick chores and commitments you can complete when you have extra time.

3.  Hire Based On Attitude and Train for New Skills

We live and operate in a world where a company’s ability to thrive depends on hiring staff members who will stop at nothing to keep prices down and quality up and constantly be on the hunt for fresh opportunities to provide value for the company’s clients.

Even in the most technically demanding positions, skills alone are only one component. Many companies have made the error of selecting employees based more on competence than attitude because they believe they can re-engineer any negative attitudes through advanced training programs.

Don’t misunderstand this point; if you need to hire a technically trained person, ensure they have the fundamental technical abilities needed for the position. However, you also need to make sure the person has the correct attitude and fits the company’s culture.

4.  Assign Tasks When It Is Necessary

Business management experts like Corporate Business Solutions always recommend that business owners give up control of the things they’re not good at. Do what you do best and ask for help with the things you don’t enjoy doing.

The desire to outsource some of your tasks so you can concentrate on expanding your business is the first step towards effective delegation. Many small business owners struggle with delegation. It’s a complete departure from what most business entrepreneurs do when their companies are just starting out.

5.  Make Adequate Marketing Investments

While expensive to maintain, marketing is also unquestionably vital. However, you must invest in marketing your company if you want it to expand in any way.

What if you don’t have a lot of money to spend on marketing? You can utilize a lot of marketing strategies that won’t break your tight budget, so don’t panic.

Word-of-mouth marketing is effective if you have a quality product or service, but it’s frequently insufficient on its own. Other proven and effective digital marketing techniques can strengthen it, such as Search Engine Marketing, Content Writing, Media Marketing, and many others.

Conclusion

Nothing is more frustrating than a manager or business owner who lacks management skills. Managing a small business requires you to wear multiple hats and maintain your attention on a variety of tasks. These techniques would assist you in maintaining your attention on the most crucial elements of your small business and keep you moving in the right direction.

 

 

What Are Business Analytics – Why Are They Important?

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A potent instrument in the market nowadays is business analytics.

A recent survey by MicroStrategy found that businesses all over the world use data to:

  • Improve process and financial efficiency (60%)
  • Promote change and strategy (57%)
  • Track financial performance and make it better (52%)

The study also reveals that 71 percent of multinational corporations expect their analytics spending to increase for the next four years and beyond.

Achieving a thorough appreciation of business analytics will help you progress in your work life and help you make wiser decisions at work in light of this trend.

Before exploring the data analysis benefits, it’s essential to understand the meaning of “business analytics.”

What Does Business Analytics Mean?

Business analytics involves using qualitative analysis methods to get meaningful data that can help make informed decisions essential to business growth. In other words, it involves gauging a business’s operational effectiveness. It helps assess both particular facets of a business and the broader organization.

There are mainly four approaches to conducting business analysis:

●      Diagnostic

Using historical information to evaluate past events and ascertain their causes

●      Descriptive

This is the process of analyzing past data to spot patterns and trends

●      Predictive

Using statistics to predict future results

●       Prescriptive

The use of tests to ascertain which solution will produce the best outcome in a particular scenario.

One must choose which approach to use depending on the current business environment.

Business Analytics Evolution

Business analytics has existed for a long time and has developed as more technology becomes available. Operations research, which was widely applied during World War II, is where it has its roots. An analytical approach to data analysis used in military operations was known as operations research.

Over time, this strategy began to be applied in business. Here, the study of operations developed into management science. Again, the data, decision-making models, and other foundations of management science were the same as those of operation research.

Management science changed into decision support systems and business intelligence. PC software began to expand as businesses grew more and more competitive.

The Importance of Business Analytics

1.   Making Smarter Decisions

Business analytics is a valuable tool when approaching a crucial strategic decision.

Uber, a ride-hailing organization, used prescriptive analytics to determine whether the product’s new version would be more efficient than its first version when it stepped up its COTA in 2018. COTA is a tool that makes use of natural processing language and machine learning to help agents enhance accuracy and speed when issuing responses to tickets’ support.

The company discovered that the upgraded product resulted in faster service, precise resolution recommendations, as well as greater customer satisfaction levels using A/B testing. This is a technique for comparing the results of two distinct choices. With the use of these insights, Uber was able to resolve tickets more quickly and at a fraction of the cost.

2.   Increased Revenue

Analytics and data-driven projects can have a huge financial impact on businesses.

According to McKinsey research, businesses that make big data investments see an average gain in earnings of 6%, which rises to 9% for five-year investments.

According to a recent BARC study, which supports this trend, companies that do data analysis report an 8% rise in sales on average and an 11% decrease in charges.

These results demonstrate the unmistakable financial benefits of a strong business analytics strategy. Many companies will enjoy these benefits as the data market and big analytics expand.

3.   Greater Operational Efficiency

Analytics is utilized to optimize corporate processes in addition to generating financial gains.

Many businesses and business management service providers like www.cbs-cbs.com/ now employ prediction analytics to foresee operational and maintenance concerns before they escalate into bigger problems.

An operator of mobile networks who participated in a study said it uses data to predict failures seven days in advance. With this knowledge, the company may better plan maintenance to avoid outages, reducing operational expenses while maintaining assets’ peak performance.

Conclusion

Business analytics has been around for a long time, and organizations have used it to make smarter business decisions, increase revenue, and obtain more operational efficiency. It’s never too late for you to start too.

 

 

Do You Need A Control Account For Your Business?

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If you have been exploring the world of business accounting services, you have come across control accounts and learned about the benefits that they offer. This can leave you wondering: is it worth having control accounts for small businesses? The answer differs for each business but, in general, you can benefit from asking your accountant to create control accounts in your general ledger.

What Is a Control Account?

Control accounts contain summary-level information in a general ledger. They are used to display the aggregated totals of the transactions that are listed in subsidiary accounts, which contain an extensive list of daily, monthly, or quarterly transactions. Control accounts are often utilized to summarize accounts payable and accounts receivable, although they can also be used for other types of accounts. It is important to note that the ending balance in control accounts should match the respective subsidiary ledger to ensure that your records are in good standing and that all your transactions for the day have been properly recorded. Learn more by checking out www.cbs-cbs.com.

The Benefits That Control Accounts Can Bring

The primary purpose of having control accounts is to ensure that your general ledger is not too cluttered with minute details. By creating control accounts, you can keep your general ledger clean, tidy, and easy to scan while ensuring that it contains accurate balances and can provide correct information for your business’s financial statements.

However, aside from keeping your general ledger neat and clutter-free, control accounts can also provide you with a way to check the accuracy of your subsidiary accounts. Since you will have to check that your control accounts’ ending balances accurately reflect those in the subsidiary accounts, you can easily detect if any transactions were not recorded. This, in turn, will help you make sure that your accounts are always in good order and prevent costly mistakes along the way.

 

Another benefit of having control accounts is that it can help you save time. If you are confident that your control account balances, you can use them to produce management accounts reports without having to go through each subsidiary account and wait for individual balances to be reconciled. If you are looking for ways to have general management and financial reports without any fuss, consider asking for control accounts when signing up for professional accounting services.

A lot of companies even use control accounts to prevent fraud. Since these accounts must be balanced with subsidiary accounts, they provide an additional barrier that fraudsters will have to overcome before they can successfully conduct their plans.

Should Small Businesses Have Control Accounts?

Many tax and accounting services providers recommend control accounts for large companies, which often have hundreds of daily transactions that will instantly clutter up the general ledger when recorded on it. Smaller organizations, on the other hand, have fewer transactions and will not need to create subsidiary accounts that are linked to control accounts.

However, just because your business is on the smaller side does not mean that you cannot benefit from having control accounts! If your business has started to boom and you find yourself dealing with more transactions per day than usual, consider asking your accountant to create control accounts and subsidiary accounts so you can easily track these transactions. This will also make it easier for you to grow your business into a mid-size or even large company since your general ledger is already ready to manage numerous transactions and you are used to balancing control accounts and their subsidiaries.

5 Reasons To Pay For Outsource Accounting Services For Your Business

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Owning a business puts you in a position where you must wear different hats. Most entrepreneurs hone different skills that serve them well in the business world, but the reality of the matter is that not one man can do everything alone. This is especially true when it comes to skills that take time to learn and master. One of those skills is accounting.

Having an in-office accountant can be unnecessarily expensive, and if your business is expanding, you just might not have the resources to add another accountant to manage all the paperwork. Fortunately, there is one thing that can help you out: outsourcing accounting services. Here are five reasons why outsourcing accounting services is better for your business. 

1. Save time by skipping the hiring process

Hiring takes time and money and you might not have all of that now. Going through the steps of posting a job online or in the weekend newsletter, to then scanning resumes and inviting people over to your offices to interview them in person, can be daunting of a task. When you outsource accounting to online professionals, the only thing you have to do is find a good third-party provider.  However, you want to make sure that whichever provider you choose, they will integrate well with the management reports you need to run the business.  Corporate Business Solutions can help design a fully integrated dashboard that incorporates both the operational and financial reports needed to run a business, including those which would be provided from any accounting function which may be outsourced. 

2. Focus on continuing your business as usual

Managing a business is hard. That is just the reality of it. Handling employees, while delivering on orders, and other responsibilities you must take care of can leave you extraordinarily little to no time at all by the end of the day. Things get even harder during the holiday season, and you need to worry more about finding someone who will fill in the job of an employee who is on a leave than dealing with your financial paperwork. Outsource your accounting tasks and make sure that business is running smoothly while your financials are being kept in check.

3. Guarantee accurate services every time

When you outsource to professionals, you know you are getting the worth of what you are paying for, and you do not have to double-check and see if work is being done right. Whether it is about getting your taxes done, managing your day-to-day finances, or preparing a full-blown financial report for your business, when you outsource to a professional third-party provider, you are guaranteed there will be no time wasted, and no loss of productivity within your business. 

4. Have full control over the service

It can be something as simple as tracking expenses or something as complicated as balancing your books. When you outsource, every time you get as much work done as you need. Say you have a small business and there is not much work needed to be done from your accountant. With an in-office accountant, you can lose money while paying them just for showing up when no work is required from them for the moment. When you outsource you hire based on your current need, and you pay only for the work that you need to be done now. 

5. Control how much you should pay

There are no leaves, no holidays, or no calling-in sick when you deal with an outsourced accounting service provider. This means that you agree to the work that will get done at the start of the month, you agree on the payment plan and amount, and you avoid any unpleasant extra fees when it comes to paying them.

The Real Reason Why You Need Business Consultants

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When it comes to running a business and making sure that everything is on an even keel, there are many things that you can do for yourself. However, there is one thing that truly stands out as the single most effective means of giving your company the best chance of success in the future – engaging a professional business consultant to help you with your business.

Well-Versed Expertise

Why should you hire an expert business consultant? That is a great question. The answer is that experts can help your company improve your business operations to make them more productive, more efficient, easier to manage, reduce costs, drive sales…and most importantly, they will deliver results.

There are a lot of myths out there when it comes to running a company, but the biggest myth of all is that you can get everything done yourself. Hiring the services of professional business consultants means that you will not have to try and solve every problem on your own or deal with aspects of the business which may be beyond your scope of expertise.

Business consultants offer a unique combination of skills and experience. Some of the senior-level consultants spend their entire careers working for large corporations where they have learned how a business with the right methods, systems and controls can maximize results. Other business consultants have successfully run other businesses themselves and now want to share their knowledge and expertise with other entrepreneurs. What is more, every single one of these experts has the expertise that can benefit business owners who need a new pair of eyes to help them see what needs to be done to maximize their success. This can serve as a great foundation for you to build upon your company’s success. And you can witness that mirrored in what people say, just as you can see it for yourself in these Corporate Business Solutions Reviews

Building Unique Business Models

If your business is growing, then you should be able to see a great increase in profits over the next couple of years. The problem is that as your company grows, it is also easier for certain expenses to creep up without you even noticing them. Hiring an expert business consultant can help you put the proper methods, systems and controls in place, so that you not only know what your true costs are but can effectively control your costs.  A lack of cost controls in your business can quickly result in a narrowing of your margins to lower your bottom line.

The best thing you can do for your business is to hire an expert business consultant for one simple reason: nobody in business has all the answers to the complex problems facing entrepreneurs today!

Business Oriented Focus

A business consultant goes through every aspect of your company and develops a custom business plan just for you designed specifically for your needs. This process ensures that the plan is not a cookie-cutter approach or one size fits all.  Rather, hiring a business consultant ensures you are going to get the best advice possible on how to grow your business and increase profits while also protecting your assets – all at the same time!

Remember this:  Whatever challenge you are facing, some other business owner has faced that same challenge and figured out how to successfully solve the problem.  Instead of you taking the risk with your own trial and error, hiring a business consultant with a proven track record of success will allow you to see what other business owners have done when confronted with the same challenge.  Now you can work with your business consultant to model your business after a proven path of success to substantially reduce your risk of failure.

It’s just simply the right thing to do.

Is Income Protection Worth having if you are Self-Employed?

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For the self-employed in the US, you are the business. Every day you feel unwell and can’t go to work is a day when no income is generated.

Of course, that isn’t true for every self-employed individual. You may have staff who can continue working and generating income without you, so a day or two absences won’t matter too much.

But what if your illness or injury is more significant, and the period you will be unable to work could be several weeks or even months!

It won’t happen to me

Maybe you’ve always maintained good health so a scenario like that will never happen to you?

Maybe.

And maybe not. Up to a third of US, workers have a period during their working life when they are unable to work for three months or more.

How would three months of no income affect you and your family?

This takes us back to the question of whether Income Protection is worth having if you are self-employed.

What is Income Protection Insurance?

If you suffer from any illness or injury that stops you from working, you will receive a monthly payment until you are able to return to work.

There will be a stand-down period before you can claim, e.g., 4 weeks. A waiting period of 13 weeks may halve the cost of the insurance, but if you are off work for 12 weeks only, you would receive nothing.

On the other hand, most policies will keep paying right through to age 65. Although you can choose shorter payment periods, as little as two years. Again, that could almost halve the cost). Some policies may even pay for longer periods, beyond 65, recognizing that many intend to work longer these days.

Another key benefit of Income Protection insurance is around when payments stop.

If you are considered well enough to return to work, payments will cease.

However, most policies have an ‘own occupation’ definition.

Let’s assume you are a builder and spend 80% of your time doing physical building work, and 20% of your time doing paperwork or marketing duties.

If you suffer a back injury that permanently prevents you from ever doing physical work again, then even though you could return to work and do 100% just paperwork, the insurance company can’t make you. You can continue to receive your monthly payments until age 65 or whatever your payment period is.

You can choose to return to work part-time or even full-time and just do administration work, but that is your choice. If you earn the same amount as your monthly benefit or more, your payments will stop. But if you earned less, perhaps because you aren’t working full hours, the insurance may still pay you a pro-rata payment to top up your earnings.

How much will I get paid?

The amount you are paid may also be increased each year to keep pace with inflation.

The amount you can typically cover varies between a maximum of 50% to 75% of your income.

If self-employed, you may need to be able to show your three most recent years of income and ensure a percentage of the average income across those years.

If you take advantage of various tax deductions to reduce your taxable income, this does not help you with Income Protection, as you can only insure your taxable income.

Like all insurance, Income Protection is worth it if you become eligible to claim. You need to understand your policy and find the right balance between cost, what you would get paid at claim time, and for how long.

If you can ensure a suitable income, and you do suffer some illness or injury that has you off work long-term, then Income Protection guarantees ongoing income that could keep your business going until you can return to work. Alternatively, it enables you to close down the business, but still, receive a suitable ongoing income to pay your everyday ongoing family living expenses.

Corporate Business Solutions provides business analytical, consulting services and strategic tax planning to the owners of small and medium-size business throughout the United States.

Choosing References for your Resume

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If an employer is contacting your references, then they are already convinced you can do the job but want to hear from someone who has personal experience of seeing you at work.

They want to hear only positive things from your references, so selecting the right people is crucial to a successful job application.

Where do you Start?

Your references should be someone you have worked with in your current or a recent job (or during an internship), preferably in a more senior position than yourself (e.g., your Manager/Supervisor), or a tutor from a University level course you recently completed.

The longer and more recently they have known you, the better.

Do not use personal friends or family as references, unless there is nobody else.

You should always ask these people if they would be a reference for you before you put their details on any job application.

What will your Reference Say About You?

The first and most important aspect of choosing a reference is to choose someone who is only going to say good things about you.

If it is a boss, you did not get on well with, then that is not the person to put on your CV. Even if you feel the response from that person was unfair.

If there is somebody you know who has a strong reputation in your industry, their name alone can be extremely influential.

Having someone as your reference that the employer or recruiter immediately recognizes makes them think, that if this person is prepared to give you a good reference, then this candidate must be well suited to the job.

A quality reference can make a big difference to any Job Application

Don’t be afraid to coach your references when you ask them to be your reference

How do you Coach your references?

You phone them or speak face to face if you can, or maybe email them, and ask them if they will be your reference

If you are about to apply for a specific job, tell them a little about the position and the skills that are required. You might then suggest to the references that these are among your strongest skills!

Let them know that they may be contacted soon. This ensures they keep you in their thoughts and are not surprised when they do get contacted.

When the reference gets contacted by the employer, they are now more likely to speak positively about you concerning those skills.

If you had some areas of weakness in the past and you have now made improvements, then you can also let the reference know what you have been doing recently to improve your skills in those areas.

Again, the references might mention when they are contacted that you have upskilled recently in areas that had not previously been your strongest.

You might have a great resume and crush the interview, but a conversation with a reference that raises questions rather than confirms your abilities can be the end of the road. Choose your references wisely and make sure they are aware of being contacted. Then you will have satisfied businesses like those at http://www.cbs-cbs.com/.

Employee Incentives: Professional Development

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Employee incentive programs are highly effective methods of boosting employee morale and driving engagement. This leads to higher rates of retention and increases in productivity.

Worldwide, this is a $100 billion industry, with $46 billion being non-cash incentives.

The value of employee incentive programs

These programs work because they leverage human behavior. Employees who get rewarded regularly are more motivated to complete associated tasks. Organizations using employee incentive programs have a 79% success rate in achieving their established goals because of offering rewards to their employees.

Your organization needs to embed employee incentive programs into your everyday culture and move away from simply recognizing workers for years of service.

Incentive programs have been shown to increase employee performance by as much as 44% and can motivate up to 66%of employees to remain with their company. In professional careers, those employees satisfied with their benefits are more than twice as likely to also be satisfied with their work.

Professional Development

One of the top incentives employees in knowledge careers seek is the opportunity for continuing professional development. Those organizations that do not invest in this, are not seen to be valuing their employees.

Career professionals who are not continuing to learn and stay up to date in their profession will stagnate and become less employable in their career field. Employers who want to grow, and retain top talent, will help their employees with the opportunity to gain experience and progress.

There are many ways you can run a Professional Development Incentive.

Training Budget

Some organizations assign a specific amount each year for each employee to use towards the costs of undertaking some form of professional development that they source themselves. This could be attending a professional conference or completing specific training courses, etc.

However, too often most employees fail to take advantage of this

Because it is budgeted for, don’t make it difficult to be approved, though it should add value to the employee’s knowledge within their career, or the organization. To ensure the budget is used by most employees, including a professional development plan in their annual performance review.

Financial Support for Earning Certificates

An alternative to the training budget, or to run alongside it, is where the employee is financially rewarded for completing courses that are relevant to their career or the organization’s goals.

Again, if you have included this in your budget, it is money you expect to spend each year and each employee only gets rewarded up to their budgeted amount.

Make it easy for your employees by giving them access to training platforms like LinkedIn Learning, Udemy, Coursera, etc.

Targeted Internal Training

Supply courses you develop yourself on subjects relevant to your organization and all employees. Utilize the skills and knowledge of existing employees to run these courses

These could be on subjects like:

  • Health and safety in the workplace
  • Health and well-being
  • How to develop a professional development plan
  • Learn the basics of a language the organization regularly encounters
  • How to remain motivated at work
  • How our employee incentive program works

Professional Development is not only for those employees in ‘professional’ careers. Some of your best employees in the future may start as employees with few skills and education. However, they might be some of your most promising workers, and with the right guidance and opportunities to gain experience, they could move into leadership roles.

Corporate Business Solutions can help you with advice about how to develop a professional development plan that is a good fit for your organization.

Employee Incentives: Gym Memberships

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Running a profitable business is usually dependent on a stable workforce. If you have high staff turnover or lose key staff from time to time, you need to consider what you can do to retain these staff.

Disengagement stems from over-exhaustion, ineffective management, or misalignment throughout an organization. Low morale leads to high turnover rates, low productivity, and ultimately, disengagement. Unhappy workers cost the U.S. up to $550 billion per year.

When this happens, you need to find a solution, fast!

The most obvious incentive is to pay more to your employees. But as soon as competitors match your pay rates, or offer to pay more, the value of your incentive vanishes.

Employee Incentive Programs

These programs can be introduced to attract, engage, and retain talent. The rewards and benefits included can be used to motivate positive behaviors in your workforce.

Perhaps the most important thing they can do to keep employees engaged is to effectively incentivize them. Incentives give employees something to strive for and provide tangible acknowledgment of their splendid work. When an incentive is offered, 85% of workers feel more motivated to do their best.

Gym Memberships Work as an Employee Incentive

In April 2021, the health and well-being app Engage recorded a 32% rise in demand for gym membership discounts.

The app found that employers were prioritizing health as a result of the impact of the covid pandemic. They reported that regular exercise reduced the risk of dying from infectious diseases like covid by more than a third and that a majority of adults want to be fitter and healthier.

Gym Memberships are now the most demanded benefit as part of an employee incentive scheme.

Workers are now looking beyond purely financial rewards in the workplace. They are actively seeking a better work/life balance and are increasingly expecting their employer to support this.

This is making health and well-being benefits something workers feel their job must-have, not something that would be nice to offer.

The increase in demand specifically for gym memberships does seem surprising as these are places people were unable to access during lockdowns.

With the negative impact on mental health caused by the pandemic, it may have been expected that more leisurely health and well-being options might have been more popular. Counselling, mindfulness, yoga, and gym equipment for the home would have seemed to be more relevant.

Employers are increasingly being seen as having a duty of care to ensure their workers are healthy. They are expecting employers to facilitate opportunities for employees to exercise and seek any physical and mental health support they may need.

Working from home during and following lockdown has increased rates of presenteeism and working longer hours. The World Health Organization has stated that working more than 55 hours a week leads to a 35% higher risk of stroke and a 17% higher risk of dying from heart disease, than working 30 – 40 hours a week.

Despite this increasing popularity of gym memberships, it makes good sense for any employee incentive scheme to be flexible enough to consider similar spending for alternative health and well-being options, rather than only offering a gym membership.

Corporate Business Solutions Inc. can help guide you towards making the best decisions for your business around gym memberships and employee incentive schemes.