Chances are, if you follow business news at all (and we assume you do if you’re reading this platform!) you will have heard a lot about Brewdog in the last couple of weeks. 

Without rehashing the whole situation, here’s an executive summary: dozens of former employees signed an open letter accusing the craft beer firm and its co-founder James Watt of fostering a “culture of fear.” Ex-staff members claim they were bullied, treated like objects, and that the company’s culture was “toxic.” You can read more in this excellent piece by Kalyeena Makortoff and Rob Davies for The Guardian.  But following this sage got me thinking: what is this “culture” thing we hear so much about, why does it matter, and how does it pertain to small business owners? 

Yesterday, 14th June, the Prime Minister confirmed that the current lockdown restrictions (with some small exceptions) will be extended through until at least the 19th July. This is unlikely to be welcome news to many people. Most of us were looking forward to returning to full normality next week, and now have to wait a little longer. So what now for the self employed and small business owners?

Employees are finally getting what many self employed business owners have almost taken for granted – working from home. But there is a growing realisation for the employees and employers that will not only be familiar to the self employed small business owners, but what potentially happens next could effect them for years to come.

With optimism coming from the vaccine rollout programme, UK SMEs expect to be hiring 1.2m staff over the next year.

Renewed optimism is the driving force behind these hiring plans, with an added desire for SMEs to grow their workforce diversity and prioritise employee wellbeing.

Some say everything needs to be online. And they have led you to believe that everything is now actually online and you won’t succeed unless it is. Yet, as we look across the business landscape at how customers and clients are coming back to businesses, there is still a very healthy demand for face to face contact and relationship building. So the sensible and and logical thing to do is to build a business that can offer both.

None of us have lived through anything like this before (and hopefully we never will again!) 

What does this mean for your business? It means that you need to make a conscious effort to support your staff as the pandemic ends and beyond. Many of them will have struggled over the last year, including in ways that you can’t see and won’t necessarily know about. 

Here are a few of our top tips to help you do right by your people.