Small business leaders had their hands full even before the pandemic. And as businesses adjust to the new normal, owners and leaders find themselves in a precarious position. Between modest budgets, managing a busy team (perhaps remotely) while continuing to grow the customer base, bandwidth is short while targets are high.
Leaders can’t be everything to everyone all the time. It’s time to throw away the myth of doing everything on one’s own. So how can small business leaders sustainably support their team? One way is through training and skills development. When teams are better prepared, they’re more empowered to achieve core business objectives.
Today, developing your team’s digital and cognitive capabilities is critical, especially amid a pandemic, when business transactions have shifted to digital. Technology enables teams to leverage cost-effective solutions that help them learn and perform better. Small business leaders can use technology to reduce the need for ad hoc learning and development programs, with tools that integrate with their existing workflows. When leaders adopt the right technology, their teams can learn new skills and increase productivity. Consequently, their customers reap the benefits through an elevated customer experience.
Leveraging the right tools
Developing team skills and processes includes providing tools that can strengthen your team’s communication. A significant portion of small teams’ responsibilities depend on communicating well with one another, and technology that facilitates better communication can accelerate operations and help small teams make a more substantial impact.
Today, artificial intelligence allows business owners to automate tedious tasks and free up time to get more done. AI-powered communication tools like Grammarly Business can help teams improve their performance and communication skills while allowing leaders to support them without micromanaging. Choosing the right tools is essential, so we’ve outlined a few considerations for leaders to keep in mind to set their team and their business up for success.
1 Make it easy to adopt
Change is challenging, especially when adding new technology into the mix. Leaders should opt for tools that easily integrate with your existing technology. Tools with a low barrier to entry enable teams to have more success with use. When deploying new technologies—especially for training and reskilling purposes—employees need time to become familiar with how the tools work and fit into their current processes. Tools like Grammarly Business offer a seamless user experience that allows teams to learn intuitively over time. By creating a pleasant and engaging experience, employees will be eager to use the new technology or solution.
2 Develop clear standards
Clear and consistent rules and guidelines are a key component to achieving a strong unified voice. Leveraging tools like Grammarly Business style guides gives business owners the ability to create rules and guidelines for their team to implement with a simple click of a button. They can dictate how to write names, acronyms, and company language in customer-facing communications. Once the custom style guide suggestions are applied, employees can confidently interact with customers, knowing that each message meets company-wide standards.
3 Track performance and productivity
As the team’s writing skills improve, it will take less time to draft messages and emails and require less oversight from owners and managers. Small businesses tend to measure success through time savings, customer feedback, and employee performance. With Grammarly Business, small business leaders can save significant time editing blog posts, presentations, or sales messages. They can feel confident when hiring new team members or contractors to communicate with customers online, without worrying that they will misspell company terms or make grammatical errors. Grammarly Business also includes an administrator dashboard that makes it easy to track progress and areas of improvement.
Leading while empowering
Developing critical interpersonal skills in professional communication is challenging even in the best of circumstances. With AI-powered tools, leaders can empower their team with new skills for better performance. Better yet, these tools allow them to support and mentor while empowering employees to grow independently. With all the time saved, small teams can accomplish more and focus on growing the business. Learn more about Grammarly Business and how it can help small teams.
