Ignition Australia December 2018 - January 2019 | Page 16

Can your
business
survive for
two weeks
without you?
A
fter the pre-Christmas rush dies
down, it is tempting for smaller
businesses to take advantage
of the Christmas and New Year period to
just shut the doors and send everyone on
holiday for one or two weeks.
For the workshop owner, it’s probably the
only time of the year they can sneak away
from the business to enjoy a break with their
family and clear their brain for another busy
year.
But if it means shutting the workshop down,
the break will come at a substantial cost.
Rent, wages and insurance still must be paid
when the doors are shut. The net result of a
full closure is that many workshops reopen
with the bank balance well and truly in the
red and it can often take a couple of months
to get the cashflow back under control.
A TaT member we know recently took a
three-month holiday of a lifetime from his
business.
The business survived, and the bank balance
stayed in the black. TaT Biz asked him how
he managed to leave the business for three
months. His response was very simple.
‘Get your systems and procedures in place
and give your staff the responsibility to run
the business. You will be surprised how
much responsibility staff will take when you
ask them’.
Three months is a long time, and not
everyone can manage that much time away.
But it would be nice to be able to take a one
or two week holiday without having to shut
the business down.
Here are some tips on how to prepare your
business to run without you.
1. Document the procedures
The business owner needs to build and
clearly document the systems, policies,
and procedures for staff to follow. Without
this documented guidance they will just
do it their way and that can only lead
to frustration and confusion. The core
processes that must be documented
may include taking bookings, greeting
customers, ordering stock and preparing
invoices.
2. Build a responsibility schedule
There are four very distinct roles in a
workshop – owner, technician, service
advisor and administration. In a larger
business each role might be performed by
different people while in smaller workshops
one person might be responsible for
multiple roles.
List the tasks for each of the roles. For
example, the service advisor will be
responsible for answering the phone,
taking bookings, greeting customers and
processing invoices.
The completed schedule then serves as a
checklist of the additional tasks that staff
members will be required to undertake while
the boss takes a holiday.
3. Train your staff
Don’t expect staff to immediately take on
extra or new responsibilities the day you
walk out the door on holiday. Take the time
to train them. If a technician is going to take
on your service advisor role while you are
away, swap roles for a week.
4. Appoint someone to be in charge
Someone has to take on leadership
responsibility. Without a nominated leader
in charge, it becomes too easy for staff to
avoid taking responsibility for anything.
Decisions still must be made in your
absence, so your appointed leader will be
responsible for making those decisions and
16 CAPRICORN IGNITION HOLIDAY EDITION 2018
dealing with issues the best way they can.
Once you have selected the leader, make
sure that all staff are aware of the decision.
5. Set realistic targets
If there are four people actively working in
a business and one is away, you essentially
have lost 25% of your workforce.
Realistically, you must expect output and
sales will be down. However, this doesn’t
mean that the business can’t operate
profitably, and breaking even would be a
worse case scenario.
Sit down with your appointed leader and
set realistic targets that might cover a range
of variables such as the number of vehicles
per day or week, dollar sales and technician
productivity.
6. Ask for extra commitment from staff
A holiday really isn’t a holiday if staff are
constantly phoning the owner for advice
when they are trying to relax and forget
work. Ask everyone to make an extra effort
to come to work on time, minimise sick days,
support each other and work extra hard
to make the business run as smoothly as
possible.
Arrange staff holiday schedules so that staff
don’t feel burnt out and in need of a holiday
themselves, just as you start packing your
bags. Ensure that key staff have had a recent
holiday.
If you want the freedom that should come
with being a business owner make sure you
prepare the business so it can run without
you for a week or two.
To get organised for the break, you can
find a range of time saving tools, login
now to capricorn.coop/autoboost
- by Geoff Mutton