After more than a year and a half of the pandemic, small
business leaders are still grappling with challenges posed by remote work and
supply chain issues. As they attempt to maintain morale, retain staff and meet
rapidly-changing consumer demand, they often neglect their own needs—and as a
result, are struggling with their burnout and a loss of purpose themselves.
For many small and midsized businesses (SMBs), the future of
work is a hybrid one, resting somewhere in between the in-person status quo of
the “Before Times” and the nonstop video calls that have defined the past 18
months. This evolution will require yet another adjustment on the part SMB
leaders, some of whom have just recently figured out how to make “work from
home” work, and many of whom have grown exhausted in the process.
“Tedious tasks can consume a small business owner’s energy,
leaving little left for creativity, innovation and quality face-time with
customers,” said Todd Gerber, vice president of product marketing at Adobe
Document Cloud. “By modernizing how business gets done with technology, small
businesses can claw back that time wasted on admin work and avoid the burnout
trap.”
To explore this reality and identify solutions, Adobe
conducted a survey of more than 5,000 enterprise employees and SMB leaders on
how our concept of time has evolved in the face of new demands placed on it.
Within the findings from Adobe’s Future of Time study, there are several
important takeaways for small business owners desperate to take back control of
their time and regain their entrepreneurial enthusiasm.
Establish boundaries by embracing automation
Even before the pandemic, many small business owners found
the phrase “work-life balance” laughable. Running a company can feel like a
24/7/365 task. The Adobe survey found that three in five small business leaders
now feel pressured to respond to emails and customer queries after traditional
working hours. More than half feel as if they’re “constantly stretched for time
at work.” Minority, women and “essential” business owners feel this pressure
most acutely, leading to higher levels of stress.
With record levels of burnout, it’s more critical than ever
for small business owners to establish boundaries about when and how they can
be reached by both employees and customers. For example, automated systems can
handle common customer inquiries so that SMB owners can cut back on the feeling
of being “on call” around the clock. Investing in chatbot technology that can
answer simple FAQs, or even adding an FAQ page to a website, is another simple
step. Ensuring seamless, digital systems for online ordering, invoicing,
returns and general communications is another.
When it comes to employee interactions, boundary- and
expectation-setting is just as critical. Here, too, digital solutions like
project-management software or cloud-based collaboration platforms can
streamline workflows. Personalized dashboards — where employees can access
everything from onboarding information to payroll to custom notification
settings — can help workers both set and stick to healthy boundaries.
Think outside the 9-to-5
If there’s one thing the pandemic made workers value more
than anything else, it’s their time. Case in point: in April 2021, almost 4
million Americans quit their jobs — a record, according to the U.S. Bureau of
Labor Statistics. Workers are seeking more flexibility and control over how
they spend their time. And the problem is widespread among SMBs — more than
one-third of leaders struggled to mitigate employee burnout and attrition as a
direct result of pandemic-related pressures, Adobe’s survey found.
Younger employees in particular are leaving their jobs in
droves. Generation Z, which will represent about 27% of the workforce by 2025,
is at the forefront of the “great resignation” trend. More than half of Gen Z
respondents to the Adobe survey said they plan to look for a new job within the
next year.
It’s not just employees who are feeling this way – more than
half of minority (55%) and essential (51%) small business leaders reported
“losing passion” for their work — an unsettling trend. Should those businesses
close their doors, already-pronounced socioeconomic disparities may worsen.
Digital solutions, like Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Sign, not
only help with time-management, but they can also ensure employees are able to
work at the time of the day that makes the most sense for them. (A quarter of
Gen Z respondents to the Adobe survey reported that they work more efficiently
outside of the traditional 9-to-5 workday.) Implementing progressive policies —
like limiting the hours of the day when employees are expected to be available
for impromptu meetings or calls, for instance — is another tactic to boost
engagement and keep employees from feeling overwhelmed.
Streamline low-effort, administrative tasks
In the Adobe survey, 83% of small business leaders reported
that tasks like managing files, forms, contracts, payments and invoices gets in
the way of them doing their jobs effectively. Likely due in part to this
tedium, 56% of SMB leaders say they work longer hours than they’d like.
Luckily, artificially intelligent task-management platforms,
cloud-based collaboration systems and other emerging technologies are rising to
the challenge to help make this work schedule more manageable. A recent
Forrester report found that productivity-boosting tools like e-signatures can
translate into more than a full week of time — 43 hours — saved per employee
per year.
Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that SMB owners are
highly interested in such solutions. According to Adobe, 91% of SMB leaders
expressed interest in tools that may help them handle low-effort tasks more
efficiently.
It’s not just wishful thinking. There’s reason for optimism
about technology’s ability to make SMB owners’ lives a little less
time-pressed. The Adobe survey found that 79% of SMB leaders who are excited
about adopting new technologies are more satisfied with their day-to-day work
tasks. Seventy-six percent reported greater levels of satisfaction with their
work-life balance. And a quarter (25%) said that technology solutions have
enabled them to weather the pandemic — and even increase company revenue.
Looking to the future, it’s clear that time is the most
valuable commodity for SMB leaders and their employees. The processes and
platforms put in place over the coming weeks and months will likely prove
instrumental to SMBs’ ability to adapt to the new and inevitable hybrid future.
Click here for the
original article.