Year-end reflections

De jaarlijkse kerstbijeenkomst grijp ik aan om terug te blikken op het afgelopen jaar en een blik vooruit te werpen naar het volgend jaar. Al jaren mag ik mij gelukkig prijzen met een top team aan mensen, die hard werken en met hun hart werken. Bovendien beschikken ze allemaal over een forse dosis brains. Zo krijg je een top team. Maar belangrijk is dat je een gemeenschappelijk doel hebt, dat er overeenkomstig DNA is. Zelden is dat zo bevestigd als in de kerstbijeenkomst dit jaar.

HR en Marketing & Sales
We maken het ons zelf echt moeilijk, al vanaf oprichting, omdat we multidisciplinair en topdeskundig onze klanten willen supporten. Maar door de uitdaging aan te gaan zijn we gegroeid. Als ik nu zie welke vaste plek bijvoorbeeld financial planning, risk management en legal support in ons dienstenpakket hebben gekregen, dan ben ik erg blij dat we deze disciplines hebben geïntegreerd. Met HR en Marketing & Sales zijn we nog niet zover. Daar zal van ons nog een investering gevraagd worden. De meeste ondernemers vinden dat ze HR zelf kunnen. Ze vragen pas onze hulp als ze van een medewerker af willen. Ze klagen wel allemaal steen en been over personeelstekorten.

Our HR consultant Emmy took us, prior to the Christmas meeting, in an HR workshop to a concrete case study. She put us to work thinking in groups about how to deal with saboteurs, how to get and keep your team motivated, the method of communication so that your employees become your best ambassadors. Creating pride. This is where the profit lies for many companies in the coming years, especially in small business. Those who think they can do it all themselves will lose the competitive battle. Waiting for the labor market situation to improve is pointless, the good people will not become unemployed.

Awareness of Marketing & Sales is even lower than awareness of HR. Again, we can do it all ourselves, according to the average entrepreneur. Employer branding brings Marketing and HR together. The company must have recruiting power in the labor market, and how do you do that? There are still companies that can attract staff despite scarcity. So what makes them so attractive? Yes but what about costs? After all, entrepreneurs need to control their costs.

Building a successful Marketing strategy or an HR building is an investment, which creates more value than investing in the company car or office building. Yet the latter investments seem to be relatively easy to finance, while for investments in the aforementioned intangible assets banks turn a blind eye. Naive of the banks. Stupid of the government not to encourage this fully.

Oh yes, that government
Stimulating is out of the question. Punishing is the motto. You are punished for fossil car driving, for CO2 emissions, for nitrogen production, for making a profit, for investing, for buying homes for rent. Some of the plans of this administration. This is how we finance the totally out-of-control government spending, which nobody really puts a brake on. That also makes it difficult for the entrepreneur. He is increasingly equated with an employee where his tax position is concerned, but he is outlawed. And yet we have an ever-growing arsenal of self-employed workers, now numbering 1.3 million. And they stay tied to their client longer than the employee does to his employer.

I therefore advocate accepting the growth of a ZZP army as a new reality and allowing labor law to move in the direction indicated by the ZZP-ers. But I also advocate that ZZP-ers be considered connected individuals, participating in the daily lunch with the payrollers, as well as being invited to the Christmas gathering and receiving a chocolate letter from St. Nicholas.

We look to 2023 with confidence. After the turn of the year, we all need to recover from the terribly busy year 2022, but soon we will be back at full strength to help our clients be successful.

Happy holidays and a happy and healthy 2023!