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With an increased pressure to sustain growth and concerns over the stability of the UK economy continuing to rise, it’s no wonder that 1 in 4 British workers have admitted to dealing with mental health issues in the workplace.

SMEs are the backbone of the British economy and in order to continue to provide jobs and key services across a plethora of sectors, consideration must be taken into how mental wellness can be boosted across organizations. 

Read on to find out how you can promote positive mental wellness within your SME.

Improve the communication channels

Social isolation is a prevalent issue at the moment in Britain, with the Prime Minister having recently appointed a Minster of Loneliness to combat the problem. Whether your team is small or large, you need to ensure that everyone feels as though their voice is heard and that communication is constant and open. To support this, you could arrange daily or weekly meetings where collaboration is encouraged between staff. Ensure that everyone gets involved and ask questions to elicit responses from the quieter members of your team. 

Offer a more flexible working environment

While it might seem counter-productive, giving your employees more freedom when it comes to the way that they work can actually help to boost morale and is likely to make them feel that their needs are more valued. You could give staff the opportunity to work remotely for a few days out of the week, which could in turn save you some money in terms of the cost of office space.

Encourage continued learning and development

We all want to feel as though our job role is evolving and changing as we get older, so to facilitate this, you need to encourage your staff to continue learning and developing their skills. You could offer in-house training or even fund staff members to go away and take a course to boost their credentials. Remember, doing so will be mutually beneficial. Having a highly-skilled workforce will give you an edge over competitors and is also going to make your staff feel more productive and accomplished in their job role.

Plan social events outside of work

Everyone needs some downtime where they can forget about the responsibilities of their job and arranging activities outside of work is a great way to encourage staff to get to know each other. If you are keen to do this, consider getting everyone to partake in a sporting event. Friendly competition is a great morale booster and a little bit of light exercise is also good for releasing endorphins. 

Finance responds to what’s happening on the global stage. Many small businesses live in fear of worldwide currency fluctuations, which can have a detrimental impact on imports and exports and ultimately threaten their all-important bottom line. If your business relies on trading with other nations or securing financial support from overseas, you are at the mercy of circumstances outside of your control, often dictated by factors such as political instability and economic pressure. Let’s take a closer look at some of the ways your SME could be affected by fluctuating currency rates and ways to obviate this risk.

Dominant Currency Threats to SMEs

Only purely domestic companies ever truly escape the risk of currency fluctuation. However, many businesses nowadays, particularly smaller companies, rely on a combination of domestic revenue and overseas revenue. Having multiple revenue streams opens you up to risk when currencies start to fluctuate, as the exchange rate is not always in your favour. If your products are imported from overseas and sold in the UK, you are at risk. If your business exports overseas while manufacturing in the UK, you are also at risk. This is one of the reasons why Brexit has proven so divisive to business owners, as even a small drop in the value of the Pound Sterling relative to the Euro could have devastating consequences. Small businesses rarely have the buffer zone in place which larger companies rely upon, and when your profit margins are already tight, this can be difficult to get around.

In another scenario, you may have investors overseas and find you lose some of the value of their investment in an unfavourable exchange rate. Few companies have zero risk as a result of currency fluctuation.

Taking Stock of Your Risks

Whilst it’s impossible completely safeguard your business from these risks you can help to lessen them with some clever forward-planning. Begin by creating an inventory of your revenue streams. Perhaps you employ freelancers who you pay in their native currency. Maybe you have a warehouse or stock which is designed overseas. Your activities will have created a certain financial footprint, so list everything you do which is conducted in foreign currency.

Secondly, consider some less than desirable scenarios and how you would handle them. Facing the worst can help you to plan ahead and perhaps find valuable ways of lessening your risk and keeping hold of more of your business profits.