Blog

Leveraging Your Technology Complimentary Webinar

Leveraging technology is the easiest way for businesses to streamline their processes, increase their efficiency, and ultimately achieve time, mind, and financial freedom. A systemised business is more sustainable, scalable, and ultimately saleable. It can operate without a heavy reliance on its owners and can grow without the wheels coming off.

On Wednesday September 15th at 12pm, join us for our complimentary webinar, Leveraging Your Technology, where you’ll:

• Understand the benefits of systemisation
• Identify inefficient processes and systems in your business
• Recognise opportunities to improve customer experience and profitability
• Determine the information you need to make informed decisions
• Discover the five-step process to build your app stack

Watch the recording here

Do you know someone thinking of using Xero?

Are you making time for Mindfulness?

As business owners, we all know the pressure of being the driving force behind a business. It can be a stressful experience, and this can have an impact on your wellbeing.

Running a business takes up so much of your time, and can consume your waking thoughts. But a tired, stressed and anxious owner is not an effective owner – so there’s an increasing need to focus on mental health and to bring elements of mindfulness, meditation and contemplation into your routine. And, investing in employee wellbeing is good for the bottom line too, according to new research by Xero.

Bringing mindfulness into the workplace

The outmoded ‘We work hard, and we play hard’ ideology used to be the norm in many business environments. But as times have changed, and awareness of the impact of work-related stress has risen, we’ve begun to refocus on a healthier kind of strategy.

As the owner, you have a responsibility to look after the wellbeing of your team too. Recent news stories about toxic ‘cultures of fear’ at well-known companies shows that employees can often be suffering in silence, unaware of the impact on their health.

So, what can you do to focus more clearly on wellbeing in your working culture? And how do you bring a more sympathetic and empathetic approach to your management style?

Look at ways to reduce your stress, turn down the pressure and refocus your thoughts on mindfulness:

• Get educated about mindfulness – read up around mindfulness and wellbeing, so you understand the benefits of taking time out to contemplate your thoughts. Knowing what you’re signing up for will help you to appreciate the value of mindfulness and its place in a busy work environment.
• Improve your work/life balance – reduce your working hours to something reasonable and aim to achieve a better work/life balance. Pushing yourself and your staff to the limit, by working long hours with no breaks, will ultimately lead to burn out and mental health issues. So, redress the balance now and achieve a positive impact.
• Schedule time for mindfulness – to make a positive difference to your stress levels, you need to make time for mindfulness and other activities that will help you relax. Book time in your diary for some form of contemplation (or exercise) so this becomes a key part of your daily or weekly routine.
• Talk to your staff about mindfulness – a focus on positive mental health must be communicated through the whole business. Share your core values with your team and allow them the time and resources to try out mindfulness, yoga or meditation. These initiatives will only work once employees have bought into the concepts.
• Work wellbeing and happiness into your targets – profit and productivity are not the only metrics for measuring the success of a business. If you’re making huge profits, but staff are leaving in droves, something is going wrong. Include conversations around wellbeing levels in your employee reviews and act on the feedback you receive.
• Build mindfulness into your company culture – a happy team is a more productive team. Look at your results after a few months of your new approach and see the impact that a happy, contented team can have on your culture, results and output. With mindfulness and positive wellbeing built into your company’s culture, you set the foundations for creating a team who love their jobs, and love working for you.

Xero Assistance Programme (XAP) 

At this challenging time it is important to know there are services available, we are able to offer XAP to you, this will enable you to access free and confidential mental health counselling and resources through the Xero Assistance Programme.

Xero has also created The Check In, a five-step series for all small business leaders to prioritise wellbeing in the workplace. It can be hard to know where to start with wellbeing in the workplace, so this is a check in for all SMEs to help them support their team to thrive in this final part of the year.

Second round of Resurgence Support Payment Applications

There is going to be a second round of Resurgence Support Payments to apply for.

These will be available from the 17th of September.

Businesses will need to show a 30% or more drop in revenue in
a 7-day period from 8 September until immediately before all of NZ returns to Alert Level 1 compared to a typical 7-day period in the 6 weeks before 17 August.

Businesses and organisations will be able to apply for the second payment even if they have received the first payment.
Applications for both payments will remain open until 1 month after the whole of Aotearoa New Zealand returns to Alert Level 1.

We can help any of you who are unsure, there will be an extra charge only for the time involved in helping you receive what you are entitled to. We will do the paperwork to support the claims, should they later be audited.

Click here for FAQ’s about eligibility for these applications.