Running a business is stressful and personally gratifying simultaneously. The truth is that not everything is going to go as planned, so it is important to have backup plans or disaster recovery plans. The termination of a former employee could lead to a lawsuit that ties up cash flow. Mitigating this would be as simple as putting an attorney on retainer, which a majority of businesses should do regardless. The most important detail to remember is not to panic or make decisions that might hurt the business long term. The following are disasters that can occur in business as well as how a business owner can help the company recover.
Penalized by Google Due to Your Digital Marketing Company
Enlisting the help of a digital marketing company to handle your online promotion can help you save quite a bit of time and stress. The unfortunate truth is not all companies have your best interests in mind. Cutting corners and using Blackhat SEO tactics can lead to a penalty doled out by Google. Not only will this drop your organic traffic it can even lead to your site being deindexed from Google which is like the death penalty for a website. Cleaning up backlinks and disavowing others can be tough. Hire some freelancers that specialize in penalty recovery as you want your penalty to be lifted as soon as possible.
Top Employee is Arrested
A high-producing employee being arrested can be a devastating blow to a business relying on them heavily. Depending on the offense they were arrested for, this could be a public relations nightmare. If you decide not to terminate this employee for their mistake outside of work hours, there are options. Working with the right attorney is important for your employee, so recommend any criminal defense professionals you might know. Expunging records could be the next step as you do not want clients searching for a member of the staff to have the search results yield a mugshot. According to Dattan Scott Dattan, criminal defense attorneys, laws on expunging the same crimes can differ immensely by state. An employee that gets to keep their job and gets through this tough time with your assistance will only be more loyal to the company.
Employee Retention is Dangerously Low
Employee turnover can hurt cash flow, lead to low morale, and can lead to a lack of cohesion of staff. Retention of employees is not always going to be perfect as people might opt for another company where they feel like their growth potential is higher. Small things like allowing staff to work from home once a week can be very valuable. People appreciate not having to commute and this can allow staff more flexibility. Constantly having to run all of your errands on the weekend can lead to this time being more stressful than it was a period of rejuvenation. Ask for suggestions from staff that have been around for years as they might have great ideas that will help the staff’s view of the company as a whole.
Your Product/Services Have Been Shown to be Harmful
The largest news story for a span of weeks were the consequences of excessive vaping. The vaping-related illnesses that continued to arise were staggering. The vaping industry had really focused on the fact that vaping was less harmful than smoking traditional cigarettes. The other focus was that many vapers were doing so to quit smoking completely which turned out not to be true in a large number of cases. Lawsuits arising due to the misinformation are not uncommon which caused the CEO of Juul to step down a few months ago. E-cigarette and vaping lawyers have seen a rise in their client number in the last few months. With the smoking aged being raised to 21, we might see a curb in teenage tobacco usage. Before vaping products came on the market there had been a steady decrease in teen smoking for a plethora of years.
Do not make any decisions based on emotion as you will rarely make the best decision for the overall health of the business. Take time to create disaster recovery plans for potential future issues so you do not feel low if a problem continues to worsen.
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