Small businesses (companies with 500 employees or fewer) make up 99.7% of all US businesses and employ 48% of the private workforce. So when it comes to making work better, small business owners and managers have a tremendous opportunity to shape how many people experience their work day. They also have a lot to gain from simple but proven HR practices that can help them find, grow, and keep the talent they need to run their businesses successfully.

This National Small Business Week, we’re excited to announce an upcoming month-long blog series focused on small businesses. We’ll bring you stories and tips for thinking about culture, hiring, and more specifically in a small business setting.

To get us started, we want to point you to our existing re:Work guides that we think are particularly useful for small businesses:

Hiring is the important thing you do. Make better hiring decisions by adding structure to each step of the hiring process.

• Guides: Create a job description | Review resumes | Use structured interviewing | Hire by committee

Managers matter a lot and can have a huge impact on employee performance, even in small companies. At Google, we looked into what makes a manager great and offer training in these areas to help managers improve.

• Guides: Develop and support managers | Coach managers to coach | Set and communicate a team vision | Empower your team | Care professionally and personally for your team

Teams are often where most work happens in the modern economy. While trying to understand what makes a team great, Google found that fostering psychological safety can help teams perform and innovate.

• Guide: Understand team effectiveness

Setting goals can help a company get to where it wants to be. Research has shown that committing to a goal can help improve performance.

• Guide: Set goals with OKRs

While these guides focus on what’s worked here at Google, our case studies and weekly blog posts share fresh ideas from researchers and organizations of all sizes. We'll be sharing more new content focused on the needs of small businesses, so keep checking back here (or join our LinkedIn community for updates). And if you're a small business using re:Work, let us know what challenges you're facing when it comes to HR.