Making a Modern-Day Business
The term “Modern-Day Business” tends to get lost in the ever-growing list of things you hear in that monthly staff meeting, or an interview as the employer describes the “office environment”. “We’re a growing modern-day business”, but what does that mean?
In this article, we will break down three basic guidelines that will guide your business along the best path to be a successful “modern-day business.”
#1: Modern Ways of Working
A modern business is now (almost) required to provide modern options of working for their employees. In the most recent years, the world has forced many businesses (small and large) to adopt this transition. This transition includes where/. how employees can work and updated policies and benefits that will entice a prospect to join your team. Let’s break these down a little further:
Location, location, location: Working from home/hybrid working is a large part of making sure your business can ebb and flow with the changes that are to come – without skipping a beat.
Remote Working: Remote working looks different for many, from stay-at-home parents to those who have found that working out of the office just makes the most sense for their business. This is essentially the process of taking your computer and work out of the office setting. Remote working can be done nearly anywhere that you have access to a secure network. If you turn on a VPN, you can have the security to work out of the office without the risk of getting hacked!
Hybrid Working: Hybrid working is a happy marriage of working from home and working in the office. 57% of employees expect that they will physically be in the office ten days or less a month. The speed that technology evolves at makes hybrid working easy, and almost a next logical step.
Updated Policies: A modern-day business can evolve and work with updated workplace policies. This includes policies about hardware, software, passwords, and more. This goes hand in hand with the ability to adapt to hybrid working much easier.
Competitive Benefits: Your business will face competition left and right, no matter your field. If you can stay up to date in not only pay, but health care, investment opportunities, hardware capabilities, and the options to work remotely, then you quickly become your competitors' biggest threat.
Another aspect of this is modern culture is enabling easy ways for your employees to communicate in a conversational way, (whether via app or messaging service), allows them to expand upon the company’s culture, collaborate efficiently, and lastly have a support system from their team members.
This will help connect your customers to your employees and your employees to your business’s growth.
#2: A Modern-Day Business is Intelligent
An intelligent business refers to its ability to predict, be agile, and transparent within the workflow. Taking a holistic view of their processes and procedures, then adjusting where they see the need for not only themselves but for their customers as well.
So, HOW can you ensure your business is intelligent? The following are guidelines that keep businesses in alignment:
IT: Staying ahead of the game with IT! Technology is ever-changing and if you look away for even a minute, you could miss something. Ensuring that your employees have the updated technology they need – from software to hardware impacts their productivity. Another vital aspect of IT is making sure that they know how to create secure passwords and know how to properly store them.
HR: Your HR must be able to work in tandem with your IT. Your HR department must be able to communicate well with IT to update policies regarding guidelines such as HIPPA, employee benefits, company culture, and PR. If these two departments can work together, it runs smoothly and positively impacts the functionality of the office.
Accounting: Updated IT and technology come with easier and reliable ways to approach accounting – from being able to create secure portals to providing payment options for customers. A CFO also needs updated tech to do their jobs well and with the most efficiency. Since a large portion of their job revolves around analyzing data, predictions for the business, and statistics, it is beneficial for them to have updated systems. It streamlines their job, the right tech enables the CFO and the finance to function holistically in adding strategy and value to the organization, specifically around furthering growth objectives.
Operations: The procedures that happen within your workplace such as on-boarding and off-boarding employees and keeping track of employee's schedules... CTS implemented EOS as our operating system which is a holistic business model that shows you how to use simple tools to your benefit. When it comes to IT itself, the operation process includes incident management, problem management, access management, IT operations control, facilities management, and technical management. IT operations themselves, are almost like a set group that works in tandem within the IT department, led by an IT manager.
Sales/ Marketing: Finally, IT impacts marketing and sales more than you may expect. To use social media platforms and communicate with clients to the best of your ability, you must have a process and procedure for using new platforms, software, and safely storing passwords.
Though all these things may seem to function autonomously, if you look at them holistically it is clear that each aspect affects the other, and they all rely on being up to date with how the world is functioning around us.
#3: A Modern-Day Business Builds a Community
A community is something that tends to fall to the background when it comes to a business setting. When it's something that can make a drastic difference in your workflow.
What does that look like? Take the Peloton company for instance. They have created a primarily virtual community experience. They have created leaderboards, tags, ways to supportively interact with other users, following other users (like social media), video chatting, and a member page – all of which allows their users to connect in various ways. They foster community in different ways that allow different people to feel comfortable while also supported.
While this cannot be exactly replicated in an office setting, it can serve as a blueprint for all the different ways to make community something anyone in the office can participate in, and how it encourages positivity. In an office, positivity directly correlates with productivity.
How CTS Can Help:
With technology ever changing, the biggest bonus rule is to make sure your IT isn’t overlooked. Our team wants to make any change you have to face, easier. CTS can help you become a modern-day business by providing modern-day technology.
