Small businesses are an integral part of the entire business landscape with recent statistics pegging 90% of all worldwide businesses classified as a small business. Small businesses also provide 50% of jobs, essentially powering the entire global economic ecosystem. After a challenging 2024, small business owners and leadership are eager to head into 2025 with sights set on higher performance, greater efficiency and maximizing opportunities. While inflationary concerns may be easing, economic instability is still a real possibility as many sectors expect softer results from 2024. Increasing operational costs are also a fact of life that has shifted priorities to better use of resources and controlling those costs that can be controlled. For most customer facing small businesses, frontline teams are key players in generating revenue and controlling costs. Highlighting individual ability and capabilities will have the greatest impact on profitability heading into the new year.

Focusing on Individual Wellness

The old cliche, ‘Good help is hard to find’ has never been more true than in the current entry level labor market. Small and midsize businesses are feeling the effects of that and are refocusing energies back to current team members. One area that yields both short and long term benefits is individual wellness. Businesses that have a defined culture of wellness will see greater productivity and accuracy from individuals as well as a potential cost savings through the reduction of sick days and other missed work. Individual wellness starts with health and safety in the workplace and having policies and resources in place is essential for smooth day to day operations. Factors outside the workspace may negatively impact individuals resulting in lower performance. Leadership ‘check-ins’ and providing resources that can help individuals outside of work can help overcome wellness challenges and reverse lower productivity and motivation.

Improving Abilities and Capabilities to Drive Business

The current economic landscape means doing more with less and SMBs are seeking ways to increase productivity at current team levels. Upskilling and reskilling continue to be strong training trends that increase individual capabilities in both customer facing and operational facets of the business. Specific areas for development are:

Acquiring advanced communication skills to maximize customer opportunities

Learning organizational skills to drive productivity and accuracy

Business specific processes and tasks that may not have been in the individual’s scope

Individual development not only has positive impacts on the business, it drives the worker experience which benefits the individual’s own sense of self esteem and confidence as well as potentially building a sense of ownership of the business. Upskilling and reskilling are compact methods to deliver new skills and habits that yield both short and long term benefits.

Starting Off On the Right Foot and Continuing…

Heading into 2025, small and midsize businesses will continue to face a challenging entry level labor situation and onboarding of new hires and development of veterans will be key priorities to maintain team strength and service levels. Entry level positions that are customer facing suffer the highest turnover rates mostly due to poor transitioning, ineffective training and lack of support early on. SMBs can reduce and eliminate costly and time consuming attrition with a well defined and organized onboarding process. Development of current staff and veterans is also a key priority in 2025 as SMB owners and leadership seek more productivity and higher performance from existing teams. Developing in-house training can be cost prohibitive but established courses and training content provided by ExpressTrainingSystems.com can deliver essential skills and habits that entry level workers need to succeed in practical and efficient methods.

The Bottom Line

The majority of businesses in the global economy are considered small businesses and these organizations are the engine of the business ecosystem. For 2025, owners and leadership are continuing to focus on improving performance and controlling costs. Driving results starts with frontline teams for most customer facing businesses and highlighting individual abilities will be keys to increasing productivity and accuracy as well as maximizing each customer interaction. Worker development and upskilling as well as setting health and safety priorities will yield short and long term benefits to the business. In today’s highly competitive and unfriendly entry level labor market, small businesses must achieve ‘more with less’ and elevating the individual’s capabilities will have positive impacts on costs and profitability.