4 Tools to Grow your Canadian Small Business or Startup

October 22, 2019

Starting and running a small business goes beyond delivering your main product or service – something that all small business owners learn sooner or later. Things like payroll, HR services, employee benefits, insurance, and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your website may not have been at the forefront of your mind when you first started your business. However, they’re critical to running your company and enabling its main functions.

For Small Business Week, we are highlighting four resources that small business owners and entrepreneurs can use to support their day-to-day operations.

1. Payroll Services

While we may all dream of a team of dedicated volunteers who work for free, chances are, your employees probably expect payment for their services. Payroll processing can sometimes become one of the most headache-inducing aspects of managing a business, especially if you have part-time or contract employees whose number of hours worked may differ week-by-week.

Whether you have a designated in-house accountant or you are acting as the defacto company accountant, payroll management software such as that provided by ADP can be an invaluable tool. These payroll software providers offer the following:

Automated online payroll data sync, processing, and remittance
Payroll tax; adjustments, returns, and reconciliations
Customized help from Canadian payroll experts
Affordable services for Canadian small businesses

2. HR Software

Whether you have a designated HR manager or are overseeing human resources management yourself, HR software saves small businesses time and labour that would otherwise be spent on manual administrative processes. Popular HR software for Canadian small businesses include Humi and BambooHR, which offer the following functions:

Digitally onboard new hires
Employee document storage
Time off management (i.e. vacation and sick day tracking)
Performance reviews; scores, feedback, goals
Reports and data collection
Recruiting tools

Humi and BambooHR both also provide payroll management functionality for businesses who wish for a multi-functional software across multiple areas of their business.

“Your company is growing. You’re not Coca-Cola or Ford (yet), but you’re more than a few people working on a vision. You don’t need a system designed for thousands of employees, and you don’t have time for software built on yesterday’s technology. What you need is a platform that makes the important stuff simple.”

Humi

3. Employee Benefits

In today’s competitive labour market, a salary often just isn’t enough to attract and retain top talent for your organization. According to MetLife, 50% of employees cite benefits as an important reason they remain with their current employer.

Whether your goal is talent acquisition and retention, building strong company culture, or showing your employees that you care (or all three!), employee benefits delivers value to the long-term wellbeing of your company and its employees. Honeybee is a digital platform that offers:

Allowance Accounts for wellness, transportation, and other lifestyle benefits
Health Accounts to personalize individual coverage
Traditional employee insurance (e.g. medical, dental, paramedical)
Completely customizable packages
A fully digital, modern benefits experience sans paperwork

Offering Employee Benefits in Three Easy Steps

Offering employee benefits can be as easy as 1, 2, 3.

Learn more here.

4. Business Strategy and Digitalization

While business owners usually have a clear vision of the intended function of their business starting out, their visions for their business strategy, product design, and website build may be less clear. As fundamental components to business growth, companies who fail to consider (or underestimate the importance of) strategy, design, and build may find themselves stymied. Companies such as Crowdlinker, TribalScale, and TWG provide such services to help companies grow their business. Services offered include:

Business strategy: primary research, user research, product roadmaps
Design: visual design, user experience design, service design
Agile software engineering: software development, platform architecture, APIs and integrations
Digital marketing and website: SEO, branding, UX/UI design, market research

The main takeaway: don’t bog yourself down with needless manual operations when you don’t have to. By implementing the right tools for your small business or startup, you ensure that your business’ back-end operations will run smoothly. This will allow you to focus on your core competencies, paving a direct road to growth.