From new worker dynamics to shifting economic conditions, small business owners today face a rapidly evolving landscape.
ADP’s Tina Wang speaks with Matt Farwell and Erron Stark about how small businesses can adapt and continue to show strength and resilience.
For more, visit https://www.adp.com/GritAndWisdom
Transcript:
Matt Farell:
So you can actually have a culture that's very employee-centric. And I think that will help attract great talent and keep great talent within the organization.
Tina Wang:
Its natural small business week. And this year, small businesses have a lot to contend with. From changing employee expectations to AI to a shifting economic landscape. Small business owners are showing that it takes grit and wisdom to pursue their dreams. With me today are experts in the small business space. Matt Farwell and Erron Stark. Thanks for joining us.
Both:
It's great to be here. Thank you.
Tina:
I love to start this conversation with talent. People are often the superpower for organizations, especially small businesses. Matt, how do you see the current talent landscape for small businesses?
Matt Farell:
Yeah, well, I love how you put it. People are the superpower for not only small businesses for but businesses of all sizes. You know, when I think about the talent landscape, there really three things that I think are playing a relatively large role in the talent landscape, generally speaking. The first is some, market uncertainty. The second is really around evolving expectations of the workforce.
And then third, there are still seemingly some shortages and really skilled workers, depending on the industry that you're looking to hire in. What we have seen across our small business space and the small businesses owners that I'm talking to, is really this idea on how do we continue to compete with these larger organizations in terms of competitive pay and benefit offerings?
And if you can do those things, what we have seen is there is an opportunity to actually go out and find the right talent,
TinaThat's great insight. Matt. Really appreciate it. Erron a lot of attention right now is on training and upskilling talent. Why is skill so training, which Matt referred to earlier so important for small businesses to gain an edge?
Erron Stark:
Oh I would start with it's not cheap to run a small business. And if you think about the costs that are inherent in either hiring a new employee or, you know, replacing an existing employee, you have a couple of different options. And, you know, one of the best ones that we've seen is if you can actually add some of this new skills, whether that's critical thinking or problem solving, to the set of talents that your current, you know, employees have today, you could potentially not have to go out there and hire somebody new, because now you've actually invested into the existing population. or having to replace talent within your organization, which now you're going to have a ramp up period.And all those things incur costs that could affect your bottom line as a business. And that's why upskilling and being able to add new talents to your existing organization is critical for businesses today.
Tina:
And I think that it's really important from an upskilling perspective, because it really helps from a retention aspect of that in terms of making sure you they do what the business owner wants them to do, in terms of learning, in terms of how they interact with clients and the services or products that they provide, as well. Matt, so you ran a small business.
So from that lens, I'd love to hear your perspective on how small business owners can manage their day to day given today's trends.
Matt:
Well, I think it varies again by industry, but the small business that I ran was a family owned business. It was in the construction industry. But I think the advice that I would give, especially as a small business in really any sector, is want to really focus on building out that culture that that best in class, small business culture.
You know, one of the benefits of small business owners have is many times they don't have layers of management. So you can actually have a culture that's very employee centric. And I think that will help attract, great talent and keep great talent within the organization. The second thing that I would call out is don't bite off more than you can chew. Having been in a small business or a business myself, when we got ourselves in trouble, it was primarily because we had this, this itch to grow and to grow as fast as possible. And there were times where we'd actually take on more work than we could actually get done. And
And the third thing that I would say is look for ways to leverage technology to really streamline and improve your operational cycle. This is an area where I think a lot of small business owners are really relying very heavily on people to get work done, and there are a lot of opportunities, both in the front office and the back office of these small businesses, to leverage technology to, to really help you scale your business.
Tina:
I'm a daughter of a small business owner, so I have definitely seen the challenges in terms of the passion and the growth challenges in terms of how you expand a business as well. So you talked about the technology in terms of leveraging. Is there anything else a small business can do in terms of outside of just like learning a little bit more, but really investing in to figure out how they can use that to leverage it across their organization.
Matt:
Yeah. You know, there's again, a lot of it is just research. So it's usually starts with where do I have an opportunity. Where do I see some sort of operational opportunity to become more streamlined or more efficient. And then going out and doing the research on what software solutions are out there?
One trend we're seeing in the fintech space is you now have embedded solutions. So you can eliminate manual or dual entry into certain software programs and really again, focus on streamlining that in the end process.
Tina:
So I think this trusted advisors are really important.
Matt:
Absolutely.
Tina:
Great. So, Erron how are you seeing small businesses address AI in their operations today?
Erron:
I think you're seeing different flavors of it. I think the one that probably comes to mind just because it's, some that you may see on a, day to day basis, is all this new, like, content creation. So whether it's videos or marketing material, if you're anything like my almost 13 year old daughter, I mean, on her phone, she can create a PowerPoint presentation. And now for a small business owner, they can leverage this new technology to create Hollywood quality production videos that they're putting out into the market to gain new share. However, some of the ones that may not be as present- Matt was talking about this before- is how do I remove, and when you think about AI, it's also just new technologies that help me with data entry, things that aren't necessarily adding value to my business.
I now can use different technologies that synthesize those platforms. So I have one single source of truth that I can go to to manage my business more effectively, more efficiently, and then again goes back to like, how do I actually impact both my bottom line but also impact the quality of services that I can provide to my clients or the value I could bring to my employees?
Tina:
So then how does someone maintain that human connection?
Erron:
Yeah. It's funny, I think the best utilizations, whether it's AI or technology, are the ones you don't see on a daily basis. It's actually the ones that kind of remove some of the busy work behind the scenes, where you can actually give the employee more meaningful work. Or I could show up on a daily basis and it's add that employee knows that I'm adding value to either the business itself or the customers that you're serving. And then if all of a sudden you're removing a lot of time that was being spent behind the scenes,
Now AI is the small business owner can actually spend more time with the people that matter most, which is either my clients or my employees.
Tina:
I think it goes back to the passion that Matt just shared, as well as the retention of our of their employees as well. Well, thank you, Matt and Erron for joining us today. For more information on trends impacting a small business right now, check out adp.com/GritAndWisdom.
