Should I advertise that my business is a ‘family business’?

In an environment where trust in business is too often lacking, family businesses have the opportunity to stand out and above the rest. Why? Because they tend to work to a set of values that resonate with people; values that often result in them being committed to meeting or even exceeding customers’ needs. If you’re thinking about using your family business credentials in your brand, here are the main benefits of doing so.

People trust family businesses

A report, commissioned by the Institute for Family Business (IFB) Research Foundation, found that a considerable majority of the general public hold family businesses in high regard in terms of perceptions around their trustworthiness.

In fact, survey respondents said that they think family businesses are more:

  • Trustworthy (81%)
  • Socially responsible (70%)
  • Quality-orientated (68%)
  • Customer-orientated (67%)

Family businesses appeal to every age

Studies have shown that a company which promotes itself as a family business is more likely to attract clients across all age ranges. It makes sense when you think about it as a family business has professionals across different generations which clients can choose from.

Family businesses are more approachable

The marketing of a family business is very informal and friendly. Often, you’ll see a friendly attitude put out over social media and the website copy will be talking to clients as if they are already part of the family.

What this does is that it makes the business approachable. It makes clients feel safe and secure and they are more likely to reach out and confide in you. This is a major contributor for why family-owned businesses seem more stable, more customer-friendly, more approachable and more trustworthy.

Employees are happier and more productive

Bringing your family business into your team ethos has a massive positive impact on your employees as well as your clients. For example, research has shown that using the family’s last name in the company brand not only has a positive impact on sales but also on company performance too.

In general, the family aspect gives most people positive associations. The environment tends to be more ‘caring’ which ensures all team members are comfortable with each other. A family atmosphere also promotes honesty which helps the team to grow and not keep problems bottled up. Creating this common sense of belonging to the family unites employees and managers across business areas, and it shows in the performance of the company as a whole.

Will you use your family credentials in your branding and team ethos?

Hopefully, this article has helped to highlight the value of promoting your family business both internally and externally. Not only does it ground your brand in the public mind in a very positive way, but it also ensures that your team are happier and more productive in their roles too.

 

How do I adjust staff working patterns?

Whether it is staggering start and finish times to reduced prolonged contact time, introducing short term working due to reduced business needs or flexible working to enable employees to meet child care commitments, a number of employers are having to think differently about how their business operates and the working patterns of their employees.

Whilst businesses should seek professional advice to ensure decisions are legal and in line with employment law such as ensuring any decision around working from home/reduced hours is not discriminatory below are a few tips on considerations you may need to make as well as tips on making different working patterns work.

Team jumping

Knowing what your employment contracts state enables you to make decisions based on what has already been agreed and understand where a ‘temporary change of contract’ may be required and therefore agreement needed from the individual (e.g. short time working).

Parents with two children

Do you need to enhance your flexible working policy to meet current and future needs of your business and employees?  Flexible and agile working has moved beyond formal agreements to reduce working hours.  Policies now need to reflect informal, temporary and permanent changes to working hours, patterns and location of work.  The should also promote a fully inclusive environment that meets the needs of the individual and business.

Two employees talking

Engage with employees to establish what their needs are and works well for them.  Where possible, involve them in the decision making process.  You also need to have a clear business rationale behind any decision that impacts working hours and/or working patterns and communicate these to your employees.

Continue to talk with employees to review success of changes to working patterns and adjust where necessary.

Traditionally, many businesses (and managers) take a time-based and ‘presentism’ approach to work and performance assessment.  With high numbers of individuals needing to work from home and many rethinking about work and domestic working patterns adjusting, a move to a more outcome based approach promotes a more productive and healthy working environment.  To help with this, managers should:

  • Set clear objectives and tasks that can be measured, moving away from a time focus
  • Agree ‘contactable hours’ where individuals commit to being visibly online and/or available for calls
  • Accept that working 9-5 is now not the norm. Many individuals may choose to start work earlier/finish later to enable them to deal with domestic responsibilities or personal activity (such as exercise)

Calendar and out of office

Utilise tools such as out of office messages, calendar’s and answer phone messages to advise people of working patterns and reduce levels of frustration when uncontactable.

agree core working hours

Having core working hours (e.g. 11:00 – 14:00) and enabling teams to arrange their working times around this gives flexibility whilst having some consistency where all employees are available for meetings.

How to get back in control of your workload

For many of us, Covid has caused a wave of work or we’re experiencing challenges with everyone working remotely and there’s just too much day-to-day work that needs to be done. This is an issue that needs to be nipped in the bud quickly so here’s how to get back in control of your workload so that you can make time to work on the business rather than in it.

3 steps to take control of your workload

If you are spinning multiple plates and you have too much on each plate, you need to take back control. This amount of overwhelm can be difficult to shift, so here are the 4 steps that you need to take:

Without valuable deep-thinking time, you are constantly spending your days firefighting. To take back time (and stop firefighting), see the time-management tips below. Start working smarter not harder.

Get more headspace

You need to know where your business is growing and how you are going to get there. If you have this, then you can prioritise work of high-value and ensure that you have the capacity and resources to facilitate this growth.

Once you have a clear growth plan and a capacity and resources plan, you need to make sure that you monitor and measure progress. Whether that’s a daily huddle, a weekly operational meeting, a monthly leadership meeting, and/or a quarterly one big focus reset meeting, find what works for you and your team to keep everyone on track.

How to get back more time

We are all guilty of working too much within the business rather than on it, but how do we make more time? How do we reduce the time spent on low-value tasks and increase the time we spend on the tasks that will grow our business?

Here are our best time management tips:

  • Do a time audit – where are you actually spending your time? Track what you are doing and how long it takes for 2 weeks. You’ll soon see where your time is being wasted and what needs to change.
  • Plan and prioritise work – which tasks are urgent and which are the ones that will help grow the business? Prioritise these to do first.
  • Delegate effectively – start delegating authority as well as tasks so that you don’t have to micro-manage.
  • Minimise interruptions – when you’re doing high-value tasks, switch off your phone, mute notifications, block out your diary, and work somewhere where you won’t be disturbed.
  • Ditch unprofitable clients – low fee clients are often more of a hassle and take up the most time so let them go.
  • Outsource low-value tasks – this is the quickest way to gain back time and increase your revenue.
  • Hold everyone accountable – even yourself. If you and your team are all held accountable for your tasks, they will get done and done promptly.

Start working smarter, not harder

If you’re overwhelmed with work and there’s just too much in the day to do, every day, take a step back and breathe. What are the goals for your business? What do you need to prioritise to get there? What can you delegate or outsource? What are the tasks that you, and you only, must do?

If you take some time to put these three steps in place – get more headspace, develop a growth plan, and monitor and measure progress – you’ll soon find that you’ll be back in control of your workload and you can spend more time working on the business rather than in it.

 

How to change your Mindset to trade through a recession

The global pandemic has hit everyone hard, the knock-on effects of which will be ongoing for the years to come. So how do we make it through? How can we keep trading successfully through the recession? While there are many changes and improvements you can make, the most underrated one by far is your mindset. By simply choosing the right mindset, you can not only survive in the recession but you can thrive in it.

How to change your mindset to successfully navigate the recession

It’s very easy to dwell on the doom and gloom when it comes to the current state of the economy, but what does that do? How does that help us to navigate through the recession so that we can come out of it stronger and more successful, and ready for the economic upturn? In short, it doesn’t.

Here are a few ways that you can change your mindset to a more positive one. One that facilitates growth and success in a time where we need it most:

1, Remember that the economy is cyclical

It’s important to remind yourself that the upturn will come. The economy is cyclical. Yes, we are currently in a downward spiral but there’s still business out there. Businesses are still doing business and they are looking for help. That’s an opportunity for you to try and grab some of that opportunity.

Be creative – how else can you offer value? What does your target audience need help with the most?

2. See this as an opportunity to review and improve

It may be difficult to see but the recession is an opportunity to put everything under the microscope and see whether you can do it differently. In some instances, you could even find a way to do things better. This is a massive opportunity for businesses and one that will go as quickly as it has come.

3. Appreciate that recessions are cleansing times

It might not feel like it now, but recessions are cleansing. If you find yourself less busy, is it because you’ve just weeded out the time-wasters? Many businesses have reported that the recession has forced them to focus on what really matters and as a result, they are focusing on their core business and what they are good at. They’ve found that the clients who were producing the most ‘noise’ have gone and they actually have time to focus on tasks that help their business to grow.

4. Reconnect with your “why?”

We’ve been forced to look at our businesses in a different way so re-evaluate. Why are you doing this? What is it that you are doing it for? What does it actually mean? Reconnecting with why you started is a great way to re-ignite the fire. It’s a great way to self-motivate and to start being proactive.

5. Surround yourself with people who support you

The last way to get the right mindset is to appoint a war cabinet. What we mean by this is surround yourself with people that you trust, people who you can lean on and who can advise you to get through this time. If you choose the right people to have around you, who you can vent to and laugh with, and who can lift you up, it’s really easy to choose the right mindset and to make positive changes.

Believe that you can and you will

Mindset is really all about attitude and you can choose it. If you think you can, you can, but if you think you can’t, then you can’t. It really is that powerful.

If you think that you can grow through this recession, you will, not because of magic but because of the decisions you make and all the things that you’ll put in place. So how can you change your mindset during this recession? How can you innovate and offer more value so that you can grow?

If you would like some more advice on changing your mindset please click here to get in touch. 
Or feel free to use our chat box —>

How to get your distractions under control

How many times are you distracted during an average workday? Once, five times, ten times?

Now, multiple this by 25.

You’ve probably heard this productivity statistic before – that it takes an average of about 25 minutes to return to the task at hand after you’ve been distracted – so imagine just how much time is being lost to distractions every day.

That means distractions don’t just eat up time during that interruption, but they affect your progress afterwards (e.g. that 30 seconds on social media is actually 25 minutes and 30 seconds), so we have to do something about it.

If you need to be contactable via social media and various messaging apps, it may seem an impossible challenge, but here are some tips on how to get the main distractions under control.

For the social media scrollers…ditch your phone and join an online networking group

A lot of us check our social media throughout the day, but there are some that do it frequently enough that it eats into their productivity. So how do you stop this?

The easy fix is to ditch your phone in the day and not have it with you at all. However, if that isn’t possible, consider adding an app on your phone that tracks your usage or limits you from using it for certain apps. Time limits mean you can tell friends and family that you have to spend your time on clients during the day, even if they see that you’re active on any social media channel during the day.

For the web surfers…install an internet blocking tool

It’s so easy to open up a tab and be diverted from a helpful article to a mass of other websites, so how do you knock it off during work hours?

Another easy fix is to install an internet blocking tool on your computer such as FocusMe or Freedom. These applications allow you to block certain websites for set periods of time so that you can still use the internet for work but you can’t get distracted by, for example, news sites.

For the easily distracted…plan a schedule and stick to it

It can be really hard working from home. Having family there is distracting, so many chores are to be done that are on your mind, and that hour for lunch seems to turn into tackling the household “to do” list. If this sounds like you, then you may be the type of person that is easily distracted.

The way to combat this problem is to create a schedule for yourself both for the week and for every day. It can help you see how much you have to get done and it gives you the discipline to sit down and do it. You can be flexible with this, e.g. setting your work hours earlier because you’re more productive, so find your best routine and stick to it.

For the busy fools…collate groups of tasks together

If you feel like you firefight through your days answering emails and phone calls, only to end the day not having done what you wanted, you can end this chaos! Start managing your time by managing your tasks.

What we mean by this is to group similar tasks together. For example, start your day off with a difficult task or dedicate 30 minutes just before lunch to answer all your emails. If you start grouping tasks together, you’ll find your productivity increases because you don’t have to shift your mindset from one task to another all the time.

For the fidgety folk…create a dedicated working space

For the people who can’t seem to sit still, who need to organise their desk every five minutes or who spend too much time gazing into space or at their photos on the wall, usually, we would recommend working from a café. Since this isn’t really possible right now, the next best thing is to create a dedicated working space at home.

Whether that’s in the spare room or in the conservatory, set up a comfortable desk with minimal distractions around you, and preferably, somewhere that has a door that you can close. This will help you to switch on your work mind when you’re in there, and switch off when you leave.

For the bored, overworked or burnt out…take a real break

Last but not least is the overworked. It’s very difficult working from home, especially if you still have your family at home too, so don’t be too hard on yourself. Not being able to concentrate or ‘switch off’ completely can really impact your productivity in the moment and the next day, so give yourself a break.

Make sure to take regular breaks away from your desk every day, go for a walk, and truly switch off at the end of the day so that you can start the next one ready to smash it.

4 ways to recession-proof your business

Unless you have somehow managed to avoid the headlines, I’m sure you’re quite aware that a deep dark recession is coming our way. In fact, it’s practically knocking on our doors. As if this isn’t bad enough, the knock-on effect is causing issues too; relentless client queries being a big one. So how can we weather the storm as business owners? How can we be one of the ones who come out of it stronger than ever and ready to grow when the economy bounces back?

4 ways to recession-proof your business

1, Change your mindset (and quickly)

Henry Ford said “whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right” and it’s true. If during the recession, you think that you are going to come out of it, then you will. Just make sure to surround yourself with people who support you and reconnect with why you started your business. It will make a positive mindset so much easier.

2. Increase your marketing activity

The temptation is to cut marketing to save on some costs but that will do more harm than good. The recession will show some clients that they aren’t getting the service that they want so how can you expect to win them if you’re not marketing yourself?

Increase your marketing in the right areas. For example, refresh the copy on your website, review your marketing to see what is working the best, send out weekly emails to your clients, call them every month, call prospects who went cold to see how they are doing, and increase your activity on your LinkedIn.

3. Make it easy for your clients to pay little and often

Clients will say they have no money (they are struggling too), but you will find that they do for the right service. If you swap your services for ones that they really need now, they will see you as essential and they will pay for your service. You can also help them in other ways such as switching them over to a direct debit payment method or by giving them a payment holiday on their normal monthly payments.

4. Increase your practice efficiency and reduce your overheads

The best changes that you can make for your business during a recession is to cut your overheads in a way that will increase efficiency. For example, what can be automated or eliminated? Automating certain processes will cost initially but they will increase productivity. The same goes for things like outsourcing and offshoring.

Don’t forget to involve your team in this process. Ask them every week what they think can be improved on and you’ll see that they will have some great ideas.

Another task that you can do which will cut overheads is to get tough with your long-term debtors and low-performers. If you tackle these head-on during the recession, you may find that costs will reduce while efficiency soars.

Re-engaging with and reintroducing furloughed employees

During this global pandemic approximately 7.5 million employees have been furloughed (more than 1 in 5 of the UK’s workforce) and, for many, this has been for a significant period of time. You may have even furloughed some of your own employees.

For employees that have been furloughed, the challenges of returning to work go beyond struggling to remember passwords, trawling through hundreds of emails to identify the three that are of importance and taking a couple of days to get back into ‘work mode’. It’s not the same as if they have been on holiday for 2 weeks!

For many employees, there will be apprehension around returning to the workplace, a potential loss of confidence in their capabilities, feeling ‘out of the loop’ and adapting back to ‘working life’ as well as possible concerns around working from home or returning to the workplace with child care commitments.    In addition to this, some employees may be feeling resentful at being furloughed whilst others may be experiencing guilt that colleagues worked whilst they did not.  Many will also be fearful of the risk of redundancy.

For businesses to successfully survive this current crisis, great care should be taken when reintroducing furloughed employees back into the workplace, whether remotely or physically coming back to their place of work.  Taking an approach similar to that taken when employees return from a long absence e.g. maternity/paternity leave, long term illness or sabbatical.  Key areas to consider are:

  • Giving sufficient time for the individual to settle in
  • Equip your managers with the tools to support their teams
  • Giving reassurance that their safety and wellbeing are a top priority
  • Creating a new sense of belonging
  • Considering changes to working hours and/or practices

Giving sufficient time for the individual to settle in

It takes on average 3 months for a new joiner to start to feel settled within their new role and whilst it is unlikely to take this long for returning furloughed employees, businesses (and managers) should be prepared for individuals to take a number of weeks to become fully productive and comfortable in their role.  To ease the transition ensure your managers:

  • Regularly check in with the individual, giving the individual the opportunity to discuss their wellbeing and ask questions
  • Set realistic, short term objectives/tasks and singular where possible to give both focus and a sense of accomplishment
  • Ask employees what you can do as an employer and/or manager to make the transition easier
  • Make available training (refresher or new) and where possible, it is in a format that can be easily accessed e.g. eLearning, guides, webinars
  • Consider using annual leave to enable a phased return

Equip your managers with the tools to support their teams

Managers will be key to successfully reintroducing furloughed employees at all levels of your business.  Ensuring managers have access to the right information (from Employee Assistance Programmes to business/department objectives), the right technology to manage teams remotely as well as ensuring they understand flexible working options and have access to HR advice when needed is vital in both supporting their needs and helping them support the needs of their teams.

Giving reassurance that their safety and wellbeing are a top priority

A high number of employees will be apprehensive about returning to the workplace and will need reassurance that their safety and wellbeing is your top priority.  The same applies to individuals working from home.  Ensure you have in place:

  • Suitable levels of PPE supplies (from sanitising gel to high vis vests)
  • Risk Assessments from managing interaction in communal areas to returning to use specialist equipment
  • Health & Safety refresher training (where possible, in formats easily accessible remotely)
  • Information Security refresher training (where possible, in formats easily accessible remotely)
  • Guidance on setting up a suitable working environment at home.  This could be a DSE checklist to more detailed guidance or training
  • Easy access to support services such mental health first aiders, employee assistance programmes and HR teams
  • Social distancing and safety measures are clearly communicated to both employees and customers

Creating a new sense of belonging

Re-engaging employees with the business vision, strategy and values as well as helping them re-establish working relationships help create a feeling of belonging that in turn positively impacts commitment and performance.

Careful consideration of internal communication channels to ensure accessibility as well as content that encourages a sense of belonging is just as important as managers enabling employees to re-establish working relationships with colleagues not only within their immediate team but also across the business.

Providing opportunities to feedback to business leaders on how employees are feeling as well as ensuring those identified as high potentials/future leaders in decision making all create a sense of belonging.

Considering changes to working hours and/or practices

Many employees who have been furloughed have established new routines that may not reflect traditional working hours and businesses may need to adapt to stay successful.  From changing working hours, work locations as well as moving from a time based/presentism mindset to an outcome based approach are all becoming a reality that businesses face.  Things businesses could consider include:

  • Introducing core working hours (e.g. 10:00 – 14:00) and enabling individuals to flex their hours around this
  • Consider rotating furloughed workers in similar roles where returning all employees is not an option
  • Consideration of working from home options, even for roles that are operational (perhaps a day a month to catch up on admin or project work?)
  • Short term working to reintroduce employees to the workplace whilst reducing salary costs
  • Subject to government guidance (still to be issued), part furloughing staff so they return in a limited capacity

The effort placed in ensuring furloughed staff return to an environment that gives them time to re-adjust, provides adequate support, keeps them safe and creates a sense of belonging will impact a business’s bottom line and both business leaders and managers are essential in ensuring success.

How to prevent upwards delegation working remotely

Do your staff members often come to you with questions or problems that they could potentially work out themselves just by using their initiative? More often than not, do you end up saying “just give it to me and I’ll get it done, it’ll be quicker?”

While it might be quicker to do this one task right now, what you’re actually doing is training your staff to be helpless. You’re training them to come to you when they are stuck instead of taking some time to work it out for themselves. Ultimately, this ends up taking up a lot more of your time.

To stop upwards delegation, especially now that many teams are working remotely, here are some quick tips for remote managers.

number 1

remote working requires more frequent and clear communication, especially when it comes to delegating tasks. Give clear briefs and explain the impact this task has on the work of others to inspire action.

Discussing important tasks or projects directly with your employee will ensure that they can ask any questions and you can address any concerns in real-time. It also allows you to set clear expectations and to have them confirm that they understand.


number 3

Monday.com, Zoom, Slack, What’s App…use virtual tools to communicate quickly and effectively with your whole team. Make sure that everyone has access so that they can see what is assigned to who and how they all relate together.

If an employee has an issue or needs help with a task, take the time to coach them through it. Instead of giving them the answer, ask them questions to help them get to a solution by themselves.

number 4
number 5

It’s a difficult time where everyone is craving some social interaction. Plus, who doesn’t love to be praised for good work? If a team member has done a good job or they’ve picked up a task really quickly or they’ve made a difference to your day, tell them. There’s nothing more powerful than positive reinforcement, especially when it comes to motivation.

‘What would you do if I wasn’t here?’

Stop saying “I’ll do it, it’ll be quicker” and start asking “what would you do if I wasn’t here?” Delegating isn’t an easy thing for most managers to do and it’s even harder when your whole team is working remotely, so don’t put even more pressure on yourself by taking on the tasks of your employees too. It may take some time investment in the immediate, but if you coach them through any issues as they arise, you’ll be training your employees to be innovative workers who will take the initiative.

Do you have a scalable business model?

Nobody starts a business to see it crashing after a couple of years. No one wants their business to stay small forever or to have to throw in the towel when a recession hits. Every business owner wants their business to generate sustainable revenue, one that funds the lifestyle that they want and creates a comfortable future for them. So how do you do this? And how do you know if your business is scalable?

What is a scalable business?

Firstly, to know whether your business is scalable, you need to understand exactly what that means.

To quote Investopedia, scalability is defined by “a company’s ability to grow without being hampered by its structure or available resources when faced with increased production.”

To put it simply, a scalable business is one that can handle and perform well under mounting workload or scope; it is one that can grow through new geographies and markets without falling apart.

Man thinking
measuring tape

How to check you have a scalable business model

With the current Covid-19 recession, if they haven’t already, businesses need to be checking that they have a scalable business model. If they haven’t, then they need to be implementing one.

Here are a few questions that you need to be asking yourself:

1. Is your bottom line growing faster than your top line?

2. If you went on holiday for a month, would your business still grow?

3. Can your current systems/processes/ways of working support your business being twice or 3 times as big?

4. Can your current ways of working produce predictable new client wins?

5. Can your business win work without you being involved?

6. Is there enough of a market place for your firm’s services to scale to the level you want?

If you answered yes to all of these questions, you have a scalable model in place. If you answered no to some or all of these questions then you have a bottleneck that is limiting the growth of your business and you need to address those areas.

Build a scalable business

The difference to surviving the recession and thriving in it is whether you have a scalable business model. There are plenty of fast-growing, cash-burning companies that are going to be vulnerable during this time, but if you have a flexible model in place, then you can not only adapt to the turning tide, but you can also grow comfortably when the economy is on the upturn again.

Here are a few tips on creating a business that can sustain the level of profitability as sales volume grows:

  • Refine the company’s growth trajectory
  • Communicate and enforce a growth culture
  • Define specialist jobs clearly & set and monitor goals
  • Set and monitor goals
  • Hire strategically and invest in technology
  • Streamline processes to boost efficiency
  • Build trusted partnerships
  • Give significant importance to marketing
  • Tactically outsource

5 easy ways to cut overheads during a recession

So many businesses are in the position where they need to cut overheads but how do you do this without having to make anyone redundant or reducing their hours? How can you do this without having to trawl your financial reports? If you’re looking for easy ways to cut your overheads during a recession, here are 5 steps that you can take.

Number 1

What processes can you automate or eliminate? What tasks can be passed down the hierarchy or outsourced to reduce wage costs and free up staff for work of a higher value? How can you streamline your workflow? What do you do for clients that doesn’t really add value?

While the answers to some of these questions may take an initial investment, such as automating your processes, the increase in efficiency and productivity will save you in the long run.

number 2
team walking down street

Your employees are the ones on the ground, they are doing the tasks and are experiencing the potential problems and inefficiencies first hand so involve them. Ask them all the questions above that you’ve been thinking about yourself. They may come up with some great ideas that you haven’t even thought of.

number 3
Lady on phone

Make the first two steps a continuous process. For example, in every weekly team meeting, ask your team members to identify one thing which can be improved or made more efficient. If something hasn’t worked or hasn’t been delivered on time, analyse the process and see what changes can be made. If you give your team members new objectives that aim to improve the efficiency of the business, you’ll soon see that you will all start improving the way you do things naturally.


You can’t afford underperformance normally, never mind during a recession, so now is the time to address this. While setting individual targets and having regular check ins will work for some employees, others will need a bit more support. Maybe they need more training in the areas where they are struggling or for a particular software. Maybe they need to be put onto a formal performance management procedure.

number 5
Two men high five.

It’s all well and good talking about positive changes and implementing them, but you need to know if they are indeed making you more efficient and productive as a business. To do this, you’ll need to decide on your KPIs and you need to measure and monitor them. Once you have these figures, review them regularly, and you’ll be able to see if the changes you are making have been worth it.

You can reduce your overheads AND increase efficiency

The best changes, especially during a recession, are those that increase productivity as well as reducing your costs. That way, you don’t have to let anybody go and you don’t have to reduce hours. It’s all about working smarter.