With New Year less than four weeks away,

now is the time to start thinking about your

New Year’s Business Resolutions.

This past year has generally not been one to look back on with fond memories. It has required lots
of change, agility, and compliance to succeed. Next year will start to see an end to the Covid-19
crisis with the first round of Covid-19 vaccinations available to the most at-risk in March and then,
hopefully, the rest of us by September.
We do, however, have some big new changes on the way – the “Climate Change Emergency” plus
the already announced Sick Leave increase and proposed Fair Pay Agreements.

This means that in the New Year there will be added compliance and expenses for all businesses
including:

1. Increased environmental compliance involving the tracking of energy and waste savings. This
additional compliance was first discussed earlier this year but was put on hold owing to Covid-19.
As you can probably guess, the additional compliance is going to lead to energy and waste
savings targets, initially in fossil fuels and waste going to the tip.

2. An additional five days of sick pay per employee, but fortunately no change to the accumulation
number.

3. Fair Trade Agreements as implemented in Australia but for all businesses. This basically means
awards by job type or trade i.e. if you employ staff with different trades or skill types each trade
or skill type will have its own award.

That’s quite a lot of change to take on board, so, to stay ahead of the game you should start thinking
about how you are going to incorporate the new compliance requirements into your existing
systems.

The New Year’s Resolution for Businesses that are going well should be to improve your Business
Planning so that you are prepared for the new compliance.

The New Year’s Business Resolutions for Businesses that are not going so well, or where you – as
owner – are having to do a lot more hours just to retain the same results as preCovid-19, should be:

1. Improved Business Planning to be able to cope with the additional compliance or,

2. If after your Christmas / New Year break you don’t want to do additional non-productive work, develop
your Exit Strategy or Succession Plan. There is currently a shortage of businesses for sale in the
marketplace and a surplus of cashed-up buyers looking for a business opportunity. With the right
grooming your business can be sold at a premium.

Into The Blue NZ Limited offers both Business Planning including Business Plans and Exit Strategies
including Business Valuations as two of its ongoing services. 

All Into The Blue NZ Limited services are registered with the Regional Business Partner Network.