What’s happening in the small business, startup, and entrepreneurial space in the first half of the 2020s? The short answer is, plenty, and it’s happening at a quick pace, even by modern standards. Some of the trends are related to environmental concerns, but others are centered on old-fashioned dilemmas like expense minimization.

After decades of blustery talk from corporate leaders, the concept of employee ownership is finally taking off, as are two related elements of the everyday work world, namely teamwork and decentralized management. One of the truly astounding features of this fresh wave of managerial progress is that it’s even affecting the smallest of entities, micro businesses.

Here are the most rapidly moving processes, methods, and concepts taking hold of the for-profit economy in the early part of the decade.

Electric and Hybrid Vehicles

Take a walk through the garage of any corporate office building these days and you’ll notice something interesting. There are more all-electric and hybrid-electric cars than you’d expect. Plus, many of those are company fleet vehicles. Organizations of all sizes are discovering the advantages of cutting fuel expenses.

While up-front outlays for purchase are slightly higher than for gasoline powered cars and trucks, hybrids and EVs are cheaper to operate. In fact, many corporations, medical offices, and city centers now offer plug-in parking spots for company vehicles that need to juice up between trips.

Modern Fleet Management

Businesses that use vehicles to get their jobs done are turning to fleet management programs and apps to meet legal and budgetary needs all around. That means even a small trucking company that has just a half-dozen vehicles in its garage can maximize efficiency, keep an eye on cargo wherever it may be, and interact with drivers to maintain safety and quality standards on trips of any length.

For owners and managers who would like to learn more about fleet management, and discover how to forecast vehicles needed to operate efficiently, you can review a comprehensive online guide that describes all the relevant features of fleet management systems.

Teams and Employee Ownership

Teamwork was a corporate buzz word as far back as the 1980s, but today’s companies are getting serious about implementing practices from top to bottom. Few entities go through an entire week without assigning a major project to a team of four or more workers. More and more of those workers are part-owners of the organizations they work for.

The trend toward workers-as-owners has been long in the making, but now it’s so common that many new hires expect to earn stock options, outright shares, and other forms of ownership within their first few years on board.

Decentralized Management

With so many people working from private homes, and teams dispersed all over the country, decentralized management is more a necessity than a trend. But the concept was already taking off before telecommuting become commonplace. For instance, many of the nation’s largest financial institutions have headquarters offices in name only. Regional, state, and local managers call the shots without having to check in with corporate, except for major decisions.

The old days of top-down managerial oversight are long gone, which is a positive development for workers who often need quick decisions on day-to-day work dilemmas.