We all know that the landscape of working life has changed radically in the last two years, and the near-inevitable likelihood is that we will probably never fully return to some of the old ways of doing things that were considered business as usual in pre-pandemic times.

But if what we define as ‘normal’ has either already changed or is going to in the near future, then the challenges we face in how we run our businesses are also going to change – and we need to adapt our working practices to meet them.

It was all going so well, wasn’t it? For the last four months we’ve been slowly acclimatising to a life that didn’t feel very much different to the one we now think of as being ‘normal’ prior to the arrival of the global pandemic.

We ditched the face coverings, waved goodbye to social distancing and, for the most part, got on with vaccinations and boosters in the hope that the worst was behind us.

Running a small business is often very different to running a larger company – the challenges are often different, defined by differences in scale, legal requirements and financial stakeholders. But both usually have one thing in common: people.

One of the biggest steps any small business will make is taking on its first employee. Often it’s a financial risk, and it brings with it a whole new set of responsibilities that as a business owner you have no option but to accept.

Recently, a business associate asked me whether he should continue with a disciplinary process if the subject of the investigation had resigned.

Ultimately, of course, the answer is that depending on the contractual status of the individual concerned, the decision on whether to proceed or not is very much down to the employer.

Ask any seasoned HR professional about employee engagement surveys (or staff surveys, as they’re also often called) and they’ll probably give you two answers: the first is that they chew up time and effort; the second is that they’re totally indispensable.

According to Forbes, the average response rate to employee surveys globally is between 30 to 40 percent, yet they take enormous effort to organise, promote and facilitate – and that’s before you even think about analysing the responses and implementing any resulting actions.