It can be extremely difficult to guide a small business’s growth as you hire on more employees and expand your market share. There are a few pitfalls that too many expanding small businesses fall into, but that you can avoid with careful forethought and planning.
Insufficient workplace trainings
Your business might be too small to have a dedicated human resources department. If so, you may need to take traditional human resources duties onto yourself, including conducting trainings.
The nightmare of any business owner is finding out that an employee is suing their company for sexual harassment, a workplace injury or another avoidable circumstance. While there is no way to perfectly insulate your business against lawsuits, having thorough and regular trainings from human resources serves two important functions.
First, it reduces the likelihood of an incident, since your employees will have a clear idea of what your company’s policies are. Second, in the event of a lawsuit it could give your company a measure of protection against liability in certain circumstances, since you will be able to show in court the steps that you took to prevent and deal with such accidents.
Choosing the wrong business structure
There are so many different types of business structures that choosing the right one can be a confusing endeavor. Nevertheless, each business structure has distinct advantages and disadvantages. Depending upon the industry you are in, your level of competition and the number of people you employ, one choice might be clearly more beneficial than the others.
As your business expands, it may outgrow your old structure. Don’t stay with it out of convenience if it isn’t conducive to smooth growth. If you decide that your business structure is not optimal for the vision you have for your company, it’s not too late to change. With a bit of time and effort, an experienced business law attorney can assist you in restructuring your business so that you can fully take advantage of the new structure’s advantages.
Entire books have been written on the many challenges that small business owners sometimes face. These are simply a couple of the most common ones which you can hopefully avoid by taking proactive measures for your business today.
