Driving Growth Black Friday: Should You Bother? Black Friday: a crucial new event in the UK retail calendar, or another unwelcome American import? We look at whether small retailers should bother taking part in this year's Black Friday sales...
Driving Growth 8 Ways Independent Businesses can Compete with Big & Online Brands It's tough being an independent business owner. But with a bit of cunning and creativity, there are a number of ways that you can outfox the big guys...
Driving Growth 10 Halloween Marketing Ideas for Cafes & Restaurants Far more than just an excuse to wear a cape in public without fear of ridicule, Halloween can be enormously profitable for those working in retail. This article was originally published in 2017. [...]
People Management How to Reduce Time Theft and Keep Accurate Employee Time Records Hourly employees often 'guesstimate' their timesheets, usually to their benefit! While a few minutes extra pay here and there may seem harmless enough, this type of 'time theft' can soon add up. Here's what to do about it.
Driving Growth Instagram: Is it Right for Your Small Business? With more than 800 million users worldwide, Instagram has enormous potential as a marketing tool. But is it right for your small business? Read our no-nonsense guide before you jump in.
HR & Recruitment How to Hire Successful Seasonal Staff If finding seasonal employees is an annual struggle, switch it up this Christmas. Here are ten tips to make seasonal recruitment less of a headache.
Driving Growth Psychology, Design & Pricing — How to Supercharge Your Menu Your menu is one of the most powerful tools in your marketing arsenal. Here are five quick tips to really make yours sing.
HR & Recruitment Five Innovative Annual Leave Policies for Your Small Business There's nothing wrong with traditional annual leave policies, but these changes could make recruitment and retention a whole lot easier — and even save you money.
Delighting Customers 6 Ways to Increase Prices at Your Cafe or Restaurant (Without Annoying Your Customers) When you’ve worked hard to build up your small business and have amassed a loyal following, the last thing you want to do is risk it all by putting prices up. But [...]
HR & Recruitment Blind Hiring: Everything You Need to Know Keeping the recruitment process free from unconscious bias is almost impossible. One of the few practical solutions to limiting its impact is blind hiring — a variation on your typical recruitment process that scrubs [...]
Driving Growth Should Your Business Go Cashless? More and more businesses are choosing to only accept digital payments. Is now the time to go cashless at your cafe or shop?
Driving Growth Is Your Business Ready for 'Making Tax Digital'? In a matter of months, there'll be an overhaul of business tax in the UK — yet only half of small businesses know about it.
People Management 5 Ways Time & Attendance Software Can Help Your Business Grow Time and attendance software might seem like something of a luxury on the surface, but when you start exploring what it can actually do, it quickly becomes obvious that it's a no-brainer for many small businesses.
HR & Recruitment Is Your Hiring Process Fair? Whether you run your hiring process internally, or outsource parts to a recruitment agency, you have to take steps to avoid discrimination and keep the recruitment process fair.
HR & Recruitment How to Choose Between Two Outstanding Candidates: 10 Tiebreakers You're out the other side of the interview process and you're left with two exceptional candidates. Candidate A has a little more experience than Candidate B, but you've been more impressed by B's responses at interview. In other words, they're neck and neck.
People Management How Staffing Levels Can Impact Morale at Your Small Business [Rota Crimes] No business owner ever intends to be disorganised, but building a staff rota without considering the number of employees you'll really need for a given period is a recipe for disaster, often resulting in too many or too few staff being scheduled to work.
People Management Why it Pays to Build Your Rotas Around Your Staff [Rota Crimes] Building the rota is hard enough without having to accommodate employees' preferences for particular shifts or days off. Pretty much every member of part-time staff has the odd day or shift that they [...]
RotaCloud News Introducing: RotaCloud Terminal App Version 2.0 We're happy to announce that the all-new RotaCloud Terminal App, which is packed full of new features and improvements, is here! Over the past few months, we've been building, tweaking and testing our [...]
HR & Recruitment How to Narrow the Field When Recruiting: 7 Easy Steps for Managers You've advertised your role in the local paper, shouted about it on social media, and posted it on the big job sites. As a result, the responses have come flooding in, and [...]
People Management How Inaccessible Rotas Could Be Holding Your Business Back [Rota Crimes] The average manager spends almost five hours a week planning and managing rotas — that's more than two workdays every month. While building a rota from scratch usually takes the bulk of a manager's [...]
HR & Recruitment Should I Use a Recruitment Agency to Hire Employees? If you've ever gone through the process of writing and posting a job ad, sorting through the applications, and then sitting down to interview the candidates, you'll know how much time and effort goes into recruitment.
HR & Recruitment The Benefits of Using Social Media for Recruitment Regardless of whether you're creating a brand new role or replacing a departing member of staff, searching for your next employee can be both exciting and a little bit scary. Choosing the right [...]
People Management Why Not Communicating Rota Changes is Bad for Business [Rota Crimes] While the majority of managers and business owners appreciate the importance of planning and sharing their staff rotas well in advance, things often start to go wrong when they need to tweak their rotas after they've gone live.
HR & Recruitment Recruitment 101: How To Write and Publish a Job Ad that Gets Results The perfect candidate for your latest vacancy is out there somewhere — but right now, they don't know their ideal role exists. That's where your job advert comes in.
People Management Why Keeping Your Staff Waiting for the Rota is Bad for Business [Rota Crimes] It might not be the most glamorous aspect of running a business, but your staff rota can have a big effect on day-to-day operations.
