Day: April 14, 2020

Sitting too much

Are you suffering from too much sitting?

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Is your body suffering from too much sitting?

Are you finding yourself sitting much more now if you are working from home, particularly if you used to get exercise walking to and from work, or from meeting rooms to your desk? Or maybe the ‘one session of outdoor exercise’ a day is encouraging bad sedentary habits? We all know that sitting for long periods of time is not good for our body. Even worse for our bodies is sitting for long periods of time in a ‘makeshift’ workstation. Maybe similar to what you are having to make do with, particularly you are working from home rather than going into your office or place of work.

When we sit for long periods of time the following things happen to our bodies:

  1. Our hip flexors and hamstrings tighten up which causes our glutes to lengthen to compensate
  2. When your hip flexors are tight it makes it harder for your pelvis to rotate and one of the reasons we get lower back pain
  3. If our workstation is not set up for good posture, such as having to work from a kitchen table, we can often slouch, round our shoulders and curl our neck down. This can lead to problems with our shoulders and upper backs.

Sounds painful doesn’t it? So in this email I wanted to share with you some top tips (tested by myself and my team) on how to counteract all that sitting and poor posture from working long hours at a desk or kitchen table?

  1. Try and get your workstation set up the best you can

This means your:

  • eye level is towards the top of your monitor screen,
  • elbows are at 90 degrees and your arms are in line with the keyboard
  • feet will be flat
  • Your lumbar spine is supported

Desk

Adjust your temporary desk 

To avoid shelling out loads of money on a standing desk, here are some ways of adjusting your temporary desk so it is set up very inexpensively:

  • A lumbar support cushion can work nicely or if you have it a small flat cushion which can be folded over to support your lumbar spine
  • A cardboard box or set of books is a very cheap way to raise up your screen to the right height
  • Use a box to rest your feet on so you can have your feet flat on the floor
  • A ‘wrist rest’ for your mouse and keyboard is a cheap way of supporting your wrists and avoiding RSI in your hands and arms

Use Headphones

Use headphones with your phone and do NOT spend long periods of time with your phone tucked under your ear or holding your phone up to your ear.

Try taking some of your phone calls standing up and walk around when on the phone

headphones

Stretch

stretch

Every hour you are at your desk make a point of standing up, stretching and walking around and not sitting down for 5 – 10 minutes.

Start a daily stretching routine, there are plenty around on YouTube, or sign up for virtual pilates and yoga classes. Once again, there are lots of free routines on YouTube. Many gyms and yoga/pilates studios are now offering virtual classes.

No working from the sofa

Don’t work with your laptop on your lap on the sofa, this is suicide for your lower back and posture.

Exercise 

Take your permitted exercise outside every day, and get walking, cycling and running.

Here are some great exercises and workouts add into your daily routine to counteract the impact of all that sitting down from the “Bob and Brad” YouTube channel. Bob and Brad bill themselves as YouTube’s most famous physical therapists.

How to preserve your cashflow during Covid-19

How to preserve your cashflow during COVID-19 crisis

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How to preserve your cashflow during COVID-19

As the saying goes, turnover is vanity, profit is sanity and cash flow is king. And never has that saying been ever truer. Use this tips sheet to help you preserve your cash flow so you are ready and able to trade again as normal when the restrictions lift.

Tip 1: Know when you are going to run out of cash

It is really easy to get caught up in hysteria and believe that your business is going to go bust. When we recently spoke with an insolvency practitioner, they told us that only 5% of the calls they are receiving at the moment are for businesses that are genuinely insolvent. If you haven’t already, it’s time to look at how long your cash will last if the lockdown restrictions remain. (If you need help with this, then let us know) When you know how long your cash will last you then you can take sensible decisions in regards to your business.

Money bag

Tip 2: Make sure your books are up to date

Book

I know we accountants are always telling you to keep your books up to date. But it now more important than ever to know the true picture of your finances. If you don’t know what you owe and what is owed to you then, you can’t take the right decisions. For those of you still relying on spreadsheets or desktop software for your books, now is the time to go onto the cloud. We, as a firm, can’t easily advise you if we are looking at out of date figures. And the benefit of the cloud is we can see exactly what you can see.

Tip 3: Look to take advantage of all the government financial help which is available right now

The best type of borrowing is the borrowing you don’t have to pay back. And there are grants worth £10k or £25k for most small businesses with premises who pay rates or who get small business rates relief. If you haven’t already claimed your grant from your local authority then give us a call. Once you’ve checked this look at the following to see if your business is eligible:

  • Deferment of VAT payments
  • Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
  • Paid sick pay
  • Business rates relief
  • Accessing a Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan

Tip 4: Analyse your business costs and pare it back to the bare essentials

Now is the time to examine your overheads. What exactly can you eliminate or cut back on and still be, either able to trade, or be able to trade when the restrictions are lifted?

pound symbol

Tip 5: Do you have an opportunity to reduce your wage bill?

arrows pointing inwards

Wages are often a business’s biggest costs. Which of your employees can you Furlough or make redundant in order to save costs? If you believe you wouldn’t be able to employ your whole team again after the lockdown restrictions are lifted, you may be better off in making them redundant now.

Tip 6: Prioritise actions which are the quickest ways to generate cash

Normally they are in this order:

  • Chase late payers
  • Change your payment terms to get paid quicker with current customers or clients
  • Give long-term customers/clients the opportunity to pay in advance for work (potentially with a discount added?)
  • Bill any customer/client with outstanding work which can be invoiced
  • Focus your sales team on your warm leads
  • Consider what can be your business equivalent of a ‘toilet roll’, i.e. what can you change about the product/service you deliver or how you deliver it which will make it an ‘in-demand’ item?

With all these cash flow tips, we can help you take balanced and rational decisions about what to do to preserve your cash flow in these very difficult trading conditions.

Ice cream

How to keep employees motivated when working virtually

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How to keep employees motivated when working virtually.

Working virtually for a day or two is often a welcome relief from the noise and distractions of the office. But after a while, as sure as the sun rises in the morning, the novelty will wear off. This tip sheet is there to help you keep your team happy, healthy and motivated regardless of whether they are in the office or at home.

Tip 1: Regularly pick up the phone to talk to employees

Imagine you were back in the office. You’d probably now and then circulate around the office and have a natter with your team. Of course, with everyone working virtually, this just isn’t feasible to do. So, make a point of picking up the phone to speak with a team member or two each day, just to see how they are.

Old telephone

Tip 2: Keep an eye out for who has gone quiet

In these uncertain times many people process their fear and uncertainty by going very internal. In other words, they will go quiet and not contribute much to any of the dialogue. If you have one of these members of staff, then make a point of giving them a phone call and asking them explicitly how they are feeling right now. And if your instinct says they are not fine if they say “fine” in response to that question, ask more questions of them.

Tip 3: Set up a group chat for each individual team and encourage a mix of 50/50 work vs non-work stuff

If you were sitting in the office every day you wouldn’t just talk work, so it is the same when your staff are working from home. It may take a while for the conversation to get going on the group chat, so much sure that you take the lead. See something which makes you laugh? Then share this. Getting annoyed by the kids being under your feet at home now? Then share this. Loving the fact that the sun is shining, then share this. Etc (You get the idea…)

Tip 4: Encourage your team to look for the positives

Thumbs Up

Right now, it doesn’t feel like much is positive. However, looking for the positives is a great way to counteract all the doom and gloom, and constant fear in our minds. You will need to lead the ‘being positive’ attitude with your staff. For example, how about on the group chat ask everyone to tell them something good which has happened today. Or share something which made them laugh.

Tip 5: Set up daily team calls

It depends how many staff you have whether you have all employee calls or individual team-based calls, or a mixture of both. If you have young, inexperienced or staff who are struggling working based from home you may like to have 2 of these calls; one in the morning and one after lunch. Ideally, in these calls you want everyone to answer these questions:

  • How am I feeling right now?
  • What am I happy, grateful or positive about?
  • What am I planning to get done today?
  • What help do I need to get this done today?

Tip 6: Encourage your staff to do some exercise and get outside every day

This isn’t the time or place to lecture about the benefits of exercise. But it is a great mood and immune system enhancer, and even more so when the sun is shining and we can get out into nature. (And we all need this right now!) Many of your employees may fall into the trap of working from their desk all day. So, encourage them to think about their own well-being and how they will look after their physical and mental health in this uncertain time.

Trainer

Tip 7: Help your staff structure their day

Calander

It’s really easy when working from home to get sucked into the myriad of distractions available… laundry, Netflix, social media, kids …. Therefore, you may need to have a 1:2:1 with each member of staff to help them think through how they are going to structure their workload, particularly if they now have the kids at home and need to spend time looking after them

Tip 8: Be the strong leader your team need

You need to be there and present for your staff. Now is not the time to hide in a corner and stop talking to people. Your staff are looking to you to keep them calm, positive and motivated. This doesn’t mean bottling up your own fears and vulnerabilities. Actually, this is the time to admit to your staff that you are scared too. Strong teams form when leaders are prepared to admit their vulnerabilities.

Strong arm

Tip 9: Take decisive action

Your team are looking for you to take decisive action and be clear in what you want and need from them. It’s pretty easy to get down and depressed when you don’t know what is expected or required from you. The more direction you can give your team now, the better the morale will be from your staff.

Tip 10: Encourage staff to have a buddy to check in with

Remember that your business is not just you. How about encouraging team members to buddy up and look out for each other?

Tip 11: Remember to praise and thank staff more than normal

We often take our staff for granted. So, now is the time to make sure you are showing how much you appreciate the effort from each member of your team.

Tip 12: Make it easy for staff to speak up in meetings

If you struggle to get your staff to talk in meetings, it is going to be even harder to get them to talk when you and they are working virtually. If this is the case for your business, then start a document which everyone can access virtually and contribute to with agenda items for the meeting. In addition to this, start each remote meeting by asking everyone to answer some basic questions in the chat box, such as “on a scale of 1 – 10, where 1 = very down and 10 = amazingly positive, where are you today”.

Tip 13: Don’t talk about ‘remote workers’, talk about ‘virtual working’ or ‘virtual team members’

The language you use with your team really does matter. Talking about people as remote or workers can really emphasis the distance between your team and contribute to a sense of isolation.

Calendar - virtual meeting

Running effective virtual meetings

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Running effective virtual meetings

Videoconferencing has been available for decades for larger companies, but until recently the majority of meeting attendees would be collected in a meeting room, with only a handful of people joining by video or audio. It takes effort for those in the room to remember that anyone is taking part remotely and the very word “remotely” subconsciously lessens their impact on the course of the meeting.

Very few businesses have had to hold meetings where all of the attendees are in different locations, so many people are only now learning how to adjust “in person” meeting processes to fit a virtual space.

Arranging the meeting

The basic setup for a formal meeting is very similar to meeting in person. As usual, you would circulate an agenda, details of when and where the meeting is taking place, preferably a minimum of 1 day before. This gives everyone time to check that they have the right equipment or software to join. The most popular virtual meeting services make it as easy as possible to join, but if you have any doubts, it’s useful to circulate joining instructions.

As host, and especially if you haven’t done this before you should have  a trial run to make sure you know how to do basic things, such as muting microphones if any participants have a noisy background that could distract from others. If possible, it’s best to set audio so that everyone’s microphones are muted when they first join.

Microphone
Video Camera

Many companies have a policy of ensuring all attendees have video enabled. This may seem intrusive, but it does minimise the chances of misunderstandings if everyone can see a face instead of just a voice. It also helps add to the illusion of being in the same room.

If you need someone to take notes, nominate them in advance. If you don’t think it’s necessary, some virtual meeting services allow you to record the meeting, just in case you need to refer back. Remember to press “record” when the meeting starts!

Check how you appear on camera

Appearances still do matter in this time. Make sure that you are able to look into and through the camera when the meeting is on, rather than staring at the screen. Also make sure that your whole face appears on the screen, and the camera isn’t pointing at the top of your head or your chest.

Pick a quiet and tidy space for the meeting

But it’s not just how you appear on screen, it’s also what’s in your camera background. Given how quickly people were told to work from home and the restrictions on space, people are a lot more forgiving at the moment. But make sure you don’t have a messy room behind you, and try not to have washing – particularly things like underwear – drying behind you.

If possible try and pick a room for the online meeting where other members of your household will not be visible. Sometimes this is much easier said than done when you have children in the house. Particularly those of an age who don’t understand that “Mummy is on a call right now” means, do not disturb.

Starting the meeting

Hand Wave

It’s best for hosts to arrive 5 minutes early to the meeting, and get the meeting started early. This allows time for you to fix any problems and prevents any early birds from assuming it’s not working.

Depending on numbers coming, begin by welcoming each attendee, acknowledging their virtual presence in the same way as you would in person. It helps to get everybody into the same mindset as they would be if they were meeting you in the office. Just as you would in a face-to-face meeting, ask attendees what they would like to achieve or get decided in the meeting.

It’s often a good idea to have a few open questions ready to ask at the start of the meeting to get people to interact. If you have more than 4 or 5 people in the meeting, it is worth using the chat box to quickly capture people’s answers and keep the energy up at the start of the room.

Managing progress

Long meetings are often counterproductive in person, so the same applies virtually, even if people are sitting somewhere more comfortable. If you have too much to discuss, break it into shorter meetings with breaks, or circulate explanations in advance and ask for input. This avoids what Harvard Business Review calls “collaborative overload”, where you spend more time in meetings than actually working.

If more than a handful of people are taking part, make it clear when people can speak, to avoid people talking over each other. How you manage it depends on what’s under discussion. A team meeting would naturally mean various people take turns to give updates. A more free flowing discussion would involve you keeping track of who isn’t speaking and who’s dominating the conversation. You can draw quiet participants out by asking for their opinion on an item, or for an update on something.

You may like to have a rule that if someone wants to speak they put a physical (or virtual) hand up. This minimises the chances of someone talking over you on an important point.

People can be braver at a distance, so if there are disagreements, suggest following up after the meeting, when people have calmed down.

Closing the meeting

Once you’ve covered everything you need to discuss, it’s useful to summarise any decisions made and confirm who will carry out any resulting tasks. Even in person, it’s easy for misunderstandings over tasks and responsibilities to arise, so it’s doubly important to check things in a virtual meeting, where audio and visual cues aren’t as clear as usual.