Branding is a word commonly referred to by advertisers and marketeers, but what does it actually mean?
Well, quite a lot as it turns out. As a business your brand is your most powerful tool, it’s your identity, a representation of who you are and how you connect with your customers. Branding in Business goes way beyond just a logo, itโs your business culture and something which is reflected across all touchpoints – how you communicate with your customers, how you speak online and even the colours and symbols you use in your brand architecture – your logo.
The use of colour and design are a crucial part of creating an effective and cohesive brand identity. It allows you to showcase meaning and message without the use of words and once established it can also offer instantaneous recognition for your customers, with the potential for driving brand loyalty.
The dating game of the business world: Recruitment
Recruitment is crucial for any business. Without the right workforce, a business would limp along and eventually grind to a halt. With the right employees behind a brand, firms can thrive, develop and prosper. Itโs a bit like the dating game of the business world, get it wrong and youโre left frayed and frustrated, get it right and youโre buzzing, buoyant and excited about the future.
Though hiring the right people isnโt easy and takes time, money and effort. If youโre an employer wrestling with the often precarious world of recruitment, you may find the following advice useful to help iron out recruitment problems and generate employment success.
Is your job description up to scratch?
The recruitment process begins, primarily, with a job description. Having a clear job description with the expectations of the role mapped out will mean there is no confusion about what the job requires and will entail.
As the HR Council writes in an article about โGetting the Right Peopleโ:
โA good job description is a basic HR management tool that can help to increase individual and organisational effectiveness.โ
In the recruitment process, a good job description will help attract the right people to apply with relevant experience. Not only this, but when recruited, a quality job description will help management identify to most relevant duties for the new employee and to realign workloads effectively, thus augmenting company effectiveness.
Is your workspace up to standard?
Nobody wants to work from a shabby dump. Interviews are a two-way process, and as much as youโre โweighing upโ a candidate to determine whether they are suitable for the role, theyโre โweighing upโ you, to decide whether they would want to work for you.
Being located in quality, well-facilitated, clean and easily accessible offices and work premises says a lot about a company and its brand. In order to attract and recruit the right talent for your business, it is therefore important that you conduct the interview on quality premises. If a candidate likes the look and feel of where they would be going to work, theyโll be more likely to say yes to the job, should it be offered to them.
Review your interview process.
By their very nature, interviews can be daunting affairs, both for the job seeker and the host. Taking stock of your interview process and making it a less laborious affair and more innovative, engaging and even enjoyable, will help portray your company in a more fun and favourable light, an invaluable asset when attempting to attract the right calibre of employee.
In its โ7 Tips for Conducting an Effective Job Interviewโ, Business News Daily cites research by Greg Willard, a Harvard University professor and senior vice president at Cangade, who researched almost 100 interviewing techniques and identified the most effective.
According to Willard, interviewers should prepare to be flexible and leave space for follow-up questions. They should also conduct a โjob analysisโ before the interview and consult with a โSubject Matter Expertโ to craft a specific list of some of the most important elements of the role and what is required to be successful in the job.
Driving staff to be enthusiastic/creative
Nobody likes to be stuck in a job thatโs going nowhere, with little chance of creative thinking and manoeuvring. Recruitment problems and high levels of staff turnover often stem from a lack of career progression and employees being unable to voice and carry out any creative thinking at work.
Great ideas can come from anywhere, and in order to attract and nurture the best employees, employers should encourage creativity, and by doing so, will drive staff to be more enthusiastic about their role and the company they work for, by creating a more engaging work environment.
As Bruce Strong, partner of CBridge Partners, a consulting organisation for business and non-profits, told Inc.com, when asked about how employers can motivate staff:
โMoney is generally the worst. Pride in company, pride in personal accomplishment, and being able to meaningfully contribute are generally much more powerful and enduring.โ
Giving employees, no matter what their role is, more responsibilities can help nurture greater enthusiasm. After all, a little pressure is good for the soul.
Hire a recruitment company to take care of your recruitment requirements
All too often, employers rely on themselves and their management team to use their intuition when hiring new staff. This can be fine when it works, but unfortunately, it isnโt something that can be taken for granted.
Not only is the recruitment process time-consuming, meaning you are using valuable employee time on an often lengthy procedure, but having experts in recruitment take control of the process can help you find the best calibre of employee.
For example, a business in Leeds might be looking to take on a new employee. Instead of assigning a manager to be responsible for the recruitment in Leeds only to find they spend umpteen hours on the job to finally recruit an individual who proves they are not up to the role, it is hardly conducive to recruitment success.
By contrast, having a professional recruitment agency take care of all your employment needs for you will not only save your business time but will help you access the best talent, meaning you get the right candidate for the job, first time.
Furthermore, hiring a recruitment company that is a small business will ensure a good working relationship is secured. Let them understand all your recruitment needs, and then potential recruitment problems and lengthy employment processes are no longer your responsibility.
If youโre looking for recruitment in Leeds, Strand Recruitment provides proactive employment solutions. Through smart talent acquisition, Strand Recruitment helps businesses in Leeds develop by finding employees with the necessary talent to take their business forward.
WorkWell caught up with Strand Recruitment, which offered the following advice about recruitment.
At Strand Recruitment, we speak to a variety of businesses across the Leeds market, ranging from small start-ups to large global organisations. Most clients will tell us that recruiting is a headache, and one which is time-consuming and challenging. Key feedback we hear from our clients includes the struggle to attract the right calibre of candidate. Not only do they struggle to find individuals with the right skills, but they also struggle to find the right personality fit for their business.
Business in Leeds is experiencing fantastic growth, the economy is strong, and as a result, temporary, interim and permanent opportunities are available across all industry sectors. Great news, yes!! However, this creates a challenge when you are looking to attract the best candidate, as you have a lot of competition! The candidate gets to choose! They may well have two or three opportunities to consider, and as a result, you need to ensure that you represent your business and the role in the best possible way.
During our interview process, Strand recruitment will ask each candidate what is top of their priority list. The most common responses include scope for progression, a professional and modern working environment, training and development, and being valued as part of the business. No longer is the interview process simply the client examining the candidate; you, the client, are also under review, and you need to sell yourself!
The advice we would give any business, small or large, is as follows;
Know your competition. Speaking to a local recruitment company will help you gain this insight into your local market. What are other businesses offering? How does your role/business compare?
Be clear on what you are looking for? Ensure you have a comprehensive job profile. This will help sell the role. When Strand Recruitment meet their clients, we offer honest feedback regarding the role profile and will help you benchmark your job specification to ensure your expectations are realistic โ does your ideal candidate exist, and if so, what are they looking for? Consider salary, study support, holidays, pension, hours of work, etc.
Ensure you have a thorough interview process. Define the key competencies for the role and put together a time frameย from CV submission through to offer. So many clients miss out on the perfect candidate due to the interview time frame. Remember, your position wonโt be the only one the candidate is considering, and candidates will not wait around.
Ensure you have your sales pitch ready, you will need to sell your company and the position โ why would somebody want to work for you?
In the majority of cases, the successful candidate is not active on the jobs boards; they may be passively looking, but certainly not trawling jobs adverts. As such, you need to ensure you have a way of networking with these passive candidates. Feedback from clients suggests that advertising has limited success; it is often the candidate who has been actively โhuntedโ that gets the job. If you do not have this resource within your business, you may consider working with a recruitment partner who can tap into their existing network.
If you are growing your team and want to eliminate the recruitment problems experienced by many, then consider working with a local recruitment business. Look for consultants who have extensive experience within the local market, who are not afraid of asking you the difficult questions, and who can add value to the recruitment process, making it easier and stress-free. A good recruiter should be a business partner to your organisation, offering value for money and essentially removing the hassle so you can get on with your day job. Remember, your time is money! Let the recruiter trawl through the irrelevant applications. If the consultant knows your business and knows their candidates, then recruiting can be straightforward.
By making a few smart moves, such as being located in quality offices and encouraging employee creativity, and delegating recruitment practices to the experts, businesses, big and small, can ensure they have the talent in place to push their business to greater heights.
The help your business in Leeds be deemed as professional and โgoing placesโ, you may want to think about hiring office space or meeting rooms at WorkWell. Situated in Leeds and Harrogate, with easy access to the motorways. WorkWellโs top-quality and well-facilitated office spaces can help your business be seen in a much more professional and positive light.
Ask Me Anything: 10 Answers to Your Questions about Leeds business address
Weโveย said it before, and weโll say it again, outside London, Leeds is the largest business and financial hub in the UK. Given Leedsโ enviable status as being the โLondon of the Northโ, a vibrant, well-connected city, in which students and professionals flock to in their droves, it stands to reason that having a business address in buoyant and thriving Leeds is going to paint your business in an admirable light.
If you are thinking of taking the plunge and getting an ultra-exclusive Leeds business address, either by renting office space in Leeds or having a virtual office in the city or its surroundings, take a look at the answers to the following ten important questions related to business addresses in Leeds.
Can any business have a Leeds business address?
Yes! Whatโs great about virtual offices is that no matter how big or small your business is, how long it has been running and what industry you are in, you can sign up for a virtual office package and enjoy reaping the benefits of virtual offices and having a Leeds business address.
Will I need a city centre address?
In a word, no. Whilst city centre offices, co-working centres, meeting rooms and virtual offices do have some advantages, namely they have an array of shops, cafes and other amenities at your disposal, those located on the outskirts have a myriad of benefits.
As we wrote in our blog titled โIt is better to have an office in the city centre or the outskirtsโ, two advantages of offices situated on the outskirts of a city are that they can be significantly easier to reach, particularly by car, and generally tend to have ample, free private parking.
Furthermore, if you are looking for an exclusive Leeds address, a virtual office away from the city centre will still provide you with that highly sought-after Leeds postcode.
When should a business look at signing up for a virtual office?
As SmallBusiness.co.uk advises, price is usually a primary influencer of whether or not a business decides to take virtual office space. Though, as SmallBusiness rightly informs, a virtual office service is significantly cheaper than renting city centre office space, particularly when an โaddress onlyโ option is taken out.
Basically, if you feel you are at a point where you want to take your business forward without making a hefty investment, taking out a Leeds business address through a virtual office service could be just the compromise you are looking for.
Wouldnโt I be better off having a Manchester business address?
Ha, ha, certainly not! No, seriously, that question depends, of course, on how much business you conduct in these two important northern cities. Though, as the BBC writes, Leeds has seen major developments and regeneration in the past thirty years, with more than 100,000 people now employed in the insurance, banking and finance industries in the city. Whilst in Manchester, 1.14 million people are working in the Greater Manchester area, which is home to approximately 93,000 businesses.
Whether you prefer Leeds or Manchester as cities is entirely subjective, but in business terms, having a business address in either of these two โNorthern Powerhouseโ cities is likely to be beneficial to your business.
Will I be able to use meeting rooms with a Leeds business address?
Depending on which virtual office package you take out, you may be able to hire meeting rooms in Leeds. Typically, as Power Space and Services points out, meeting room hire is available in the same building as the professional business address.
Having access to professional, well-facilitated meeting rooms comes with another set of benefits for businesses of all shapes and sizes, including being seen in a more professional light.
Will I be able to network with a Leeds business address?
Yes. One of the principal benefits of virtual offices is that they give companies and sole traders the opportunity to conduct business professionally while networking and reaping the business-enhancing benefits networking provides.
Can I get a business phone line with my Leeds business address?
Again, depending on which virtual office package you take out, you will have the choice of having a registered business line, which enables you to take calls on the go whilst never divulging your mobile phone or home landline number.
Can I have a receptionist answer my calls?
As your business grows, finding the time to answer and respond to incoming calls and voice messages can be challenging. You can overcome this problem with your Leeds business address if you opt for a virtual office that comes with reception and answering service.
For example, Carrwood Parkโs virtual office packages come with the option of having such a service, whereby a professional and friendly receptionist will answer and forward all your calls.
Will having a Leeds business address affect my SEO?
In a word, yes, and for the better. As Work Webb Net highlights, all the major search engines rely on a โphysicalโ business address mentioned on a companyโs website to provide results to search enquiries. Consequently, if you have a Leeds business address on your website, your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) within the Leeds vicinity is likely to be improved, resulting in your business being more commercially competitive in Leeds.
Will having a prestigious Leeds business address cost me a fortune?
No! Virtual offices a pretty inexpensive, and their benefits can easily outweigh the small monthly payments you will have to make. For example, Carrwood Parkโs virtual office packages start from just ยฃ30 a month, of which youโll get an exclusive business address, notification of when post and parcels arrive, and parcels forwarded with Royal Mail at their standard rate.
We canโt say fairer than that!
For more information about treating your business to a prestigious Leeds business address and the other benefits of virtual offices, get in touch with WorkWell, providers of quality, convenient and friendly offices and meeting rooms in Leeds and Harrogate.
Youโve relocated to a new city; youโre establishing a business in unfamiliar territory. Naturally, youโre keen to meet people and make new contacts. What you need to do is get networking!
The digital age has brought with it a whole host of new opportunities for businesses. There are so many incredible products on the market, all promising to make your office more efficient and productive.
By generating contacts and opportunities in a fun, engaging and collaborative way, networking is a key activity for professionals of almost every capacity.
ย Does your current office space meet your businessโs culture needs? If not, perhaps itโs time for a change.
Committing to an office space for your business is a big decision. The office you choose now is likely to have a big impact on your business for several years ahead, so itโs important to invest the time to get it right.
Most businesses set out to rent office space with a โmust-haveโ list. Typically, this list consists of practical considerations such as cost, size, accessibility and location.
These practical considerations are extremely important, of course. The ideal office should be within budget but offer plenty of scope for your business to grow. Youโll also want the office to be easy for your employees and clients to get to.
Once these basic needs have been met, we think thereโs a much bigger consideration for businesses to think about: the question of the culture match.
Why does culture matter for office space?
The culture of an office space is the one consideration businesses often struggle to put into words. They might comment on how the offices theyโre looking at โfeelโ, or they may have an idea of the kind of image they want their new business base to project to their clients.
Either way, the culture of the office space is important as it will determine whether the space you choose is a good fit, or whether something doesnโt quite work.
Culture is important, whether youโre looking at serviced office suites or co-working spaces. The culture of an office building will determine what kinds of other businesses and professionals youโll be working alongside, the type of features and facilities that are offered, and the general atmosphere of the building.
All these factors will be important to take into consideration, especially if youโre looking for a long-term home for your business.
How do you decide what kind of culture is right for you?
Of course, before you can find an office that has the same kind of culture as your business, itโs important to determine what that culture is.
Some businesses have a very obviously defined culture thatโs set out in a business plan or mission statement. Other businesses have a more organically sourced culture that has often evolved from the bottom up.
Whichever camp your business falls into, it might be wise to gain a greater understanding of the values that are important to it before you make a big decision.
What questions should you ask when you look around?
The best way to get a feel for the culture of any potential office suites or co-working spaces is to go and look around them in person. We really encourage viewings at Carrwood Park as we think itโs the quickest and most effective way to determine whether a place is a good fit.
While youโre there, a few well-chosen questions can teach you a lot about the culture of a place.
Try asking things like:
What kind of breakout and meeting areas are available?
Who are the other businesses in the building?
Do most professionals stick to a business dress code?
What hours is the building open?
Are there a lot of social events?
Do you host networking events, and who normally attends?
What’s the payoff?
We genuinely believe that itโs worth investing the extra time to find an office that sits well with the culture of your business.
A well-matched culture will mean that you and your business feel right at home from the very first day. It will also mean that your new office is likely to continue to meet your needs for longer.
Finally, if you are successful in finding an office space with a complementary culture, the other businesses and professionals who are based there are also likely to be a great match for you. This could be great for networking, skill-sharing, and even socialising.
Does your current office space meet your business’s cultural needs? If not, perhaps it’s time for a change.
Over the last few years, flexible working has become something of a buzzword in the business world. Some companies have embraced it wholeheartedly, others have shied away from it completely, and most have adopted an approach to it that falls somewhere between the two.
But what actually is flexible working and what could it have to offer your business?
A definition of flexible working
As you can imagine, itโs hard to fully define something that has the word โflexibleโ in the title! The great thing about adopting flexible working practices is that itโs a non-prescriptive working style thatโs easily adaptable to any business.
The CIPD defines flexible working as โa type of working arrangement which gives a degree of flexibility on how long, where, when and at what times employees work.โ It often includes options such as flexitime, remote working, compressed hours, working from home and zero-hour contracts.
What are the benefits of flexible working?
There are some fantastic benefits to flexible working. It may seem counterintuitive, but study after study has shown that businesses that offer their employees flexibility over working hours and location get the benefit of greater productivity.
Hereโs what employees have to say about flexible working:
83% of employees say that it boosts their job satisfaction – A MokahHR review
76% of employees say it improves their work/life balance โ Gallupโs survey
73% of managers say it improves productivity โ Tech.co survey
Is there are downside to flexible working?
With more and more forward-facing businesses adopting this working practice, it makes sense to ask if there are any downsides.
The only real downside to flexible working is that there can be an initial adjustment period while employers and employees get used to the changes. There can also be an upfront investment for businesses to equip employees with the laptops and devices they need in order to be able to work efficiently from home or other remote locations.
However, the cost and time involved in this initial period are typically seen as a very small price to pay for the long-term benefits of a happier team.
Do employers have to offer flexible working?
Though more and more businesses are seeing the value in promoting flexible working options to their employees, some are still unsure about offering them.
There are some laws and regulations to be aware of here. In the UK, all employees have the right to request flexible working, so long as they have worked for the same employer for twenty-six weeks or more. However, at the moment, employers are only obliged to deal with requests in a reasonable manner and can turn them down if they have a good business reason for doing so.
How can you get started?
If you think flexible working is the way forward for your business, there are several ways you can dip your toes in the water and start exploring the benefits.
Smaller businesses may want to look into moving into a flexible-friendly co-working office. Tempted? Why not take a look at our fantastic Leeds co-working space?
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