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Archive for category Leadership

How To Make Employees More Productive

Aug 27

Posted by Michael Crooks in Human Resource Management, Leadership, Planning, The Board Room, The Sales Dept | No Comments

Most companies are extremely aware of their external markets such as clients, customers, distributor networks and even vendors. But many fail to realize that employees make up an internal market. There are plenty of organizations that bend over backwards to get feedback and input from customers and clients. Far fewer work as hard to get feedback and input from employees. I sincerely believe that any organization that doesn’t view its employees as an internal market is shortsighted. And if you think the majority of your employees are happy campers – I’ve got news for you.

In a report released January 5, 2010 by The Conference Board based on a survey of 5000 U.S. households, only 45 percent of those surveyed said they are satisfied with their jobs. 55 percent are not satisfied with their jobs! According to Lynn Franco, director of the Consumer Research Center of The Conference Board, “The downward trend in job satisfaction could spell trouble for the overall engagement of U.S. employees and ultimately employee productivity.”

What the report doesn’t tell us is WHY 55 percent of employees are dissatisfied. And while specific reasons for dissatisfaction vary by company, job and employee, I believe it can pretty much be summed up as a disconnect between those in the ivory tower and those in the trenches.

One of the best books I ever read on management and problem-solving is an 80 page book called, “I Know It When I See It” by John Guaspari. In the book, the Boss demoralized his employees by telling them that the key to increasing the quality of their product is to, “Try Harder! Do Better!” It had the same effect as unfunded government mandates – no one was given the information, tools or ability to accomplish the edict. What followed was employee frustration, job dissatisfaction and further loss of market share.

If your company is large enough, consider an undercover operation to include the top echelon. In disguise either shop your company or get a job with your company. See first-hand what affect your policies and directives are having on those who must deliver your product or service. In smaller companies, I encourage bosses and managers to get out of the back room. Run the cash register. Load some trucks. Ride and work the route. Stock some shelves.

The easiest dollar made is from a happy, repeat customer. But that’s a lot harder to achieve when employees’ are hampered by decisions based solely on numbers made by people sitting behind desks who are out of touch with reality.

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Great profits…

Jul 31

Posted by Steve Gray in Excellence!, Leadership, Planning | No Comments

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“Great profits come from great products and services…”
Seems like a simple enough statement, but what makes a great company??
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Simple…
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Great people.
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Therefore great people make great companies, so it stands to reason if great companies recognise this they will do their utmost to make sure they make greater people out of the ones they already have.
It also stands to reason a great company will be passionate about people because of this knowledge and provide a “loving environment.”
“What’s a loving environment…?” Lets brainstorm for a minute. (Go ahead I’ll wait…) Enough of the waiting here’s a list to contemplate.
  • Elegant systems people love to use.
  • Great training which works with the team to provide relevant skills and information for each level they are at.
  • Great support, especially if you want your people to succeed to the max.
  • Elegant communication, your people talk, and not just about the weekend sport or other activities, they talk work and they do so with great interest.
  • The chance to put in, to give, to be an active part of the organisation. Why because they like to achieve, they want to achieve they CRAVE achievement. Why? because it gives them a greater sense of purpose.
  • Great service. Your people go all out to be exceptional, and new recruits get to model the exceptional behaviour of your best people, if they don’t do it or get it they are out and you search for better people.
  • Great examples. Your best people are champions and the rest of the team aspire to be like them, yeah? Of course, if not…. keep training them.
To do all this takes time and expertise, you have to make sure you get the expertise and share it. You know what, I don’t care if you have to do courses after hours, work on your systems on weekends, tweak policies or procedures at 2am, do it.
Do it because you have to make sure your business is the best and will stand the test of time and tough business environments (like a recession and or depression.)
Do it because to live in utopia we need utopian thinking and we need it to start somewhere. If you are not thinking utopia, what are you thinking? Mediocre? or something less than great… why?
Okay it requires effort, but if you already have a team put up this list (add to it if you want) and have them provide ways to get the list into action. Then act on the information as soon as possible.
Now look for the gaps, gaps in the attitudes, gaps in the systems, gaps in the budgets, profits, processes, service provision… Then fill the gaps fast, before long your company will be exceptional and not just great.

Your business, your image, so who’s in charge of it?

Jul 15

Posted by Steve Gray in Excellence!, Leadership, People! | 1 Comment

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Many smaller businesses get to the point of understanding that to be a business owner and not just a business operator  you need a team of people to run the business and you are now reaping the rewards from doing just that.

While you have been busy doing it and aiming to do it well, is there anything you may have forgotten? For instance the image of the business?

It could be the display space in the window, or the signage which has slowly faded, or the vehicles your delivery people charge about in. No matter what it is, it represents your business image which in turn reflects what people (customers!) think of the business.

Who’s in charge of the image is an important and often overlooked area. Simply put most organisations say it’s the job of the Marketing Dept, while others will shove the responsibility to a junior to “set up the window display”.

Think about the situation and consider having a person (perhaps with a back up person) to ensure each week the “professional image” of the business is run through a checklist. It can be simple to begin with and build from there to become a fully blown in depth process, but please make sure it is a top priority as customers can be quick to judge and long to forget.

Here are some key areas to consider:

  • How well is the cleaning done in all areas, the slightest thing can put people off.
  • Are delivery drivers forbidden from smoking in a vehicle at ALL times?
  • Do vehicles with the business name on them present really well, or do they need to be cleaned and checked more often?
  • Display areas for stock, how good are they, and what are  you comparing them too?
  • Signage, fading or in need of a clean?
  • Your uniforms… up to standard or?

Start a checklist up and ensure the person in charge of the overall image of the business uses it regularly to effectively assess the business image.

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What are your people doing, working… or?

Jul 12

Posted by Steve Gray in Excellence!, Leadership, People!, Planning | No Comments

Everyone seems busy right… But things are not moving very well, the people are all busy? Should I put another staff member on…

These and a whole bunch of other questions could be bothering you if your business is a bit bigger than a few employees.

You think back to the early days of doing everything yourself, you worked 12 hour days and then some, finally getting some breathing space when you took on some staff. You trained them and you could see great progress but now things seem different. What’s happening?

Perhaps your people have found a comfortable place for themselves and are keeping themselves busy (it makes the day go faster…) and not overly concerned about the effectiveness of things.

You have a meeting with your key people “Blah, Blah Blah!!!” you go on about how the key guys should lead the team, how they should get up noses, rattle the cage so to speak, and for a short while you see some “scared rabbits” run about and things pick up and then fade, now they are all back to busy but not overly effective.

Your method of getting people to do things seemed great at the time, but knowing it failed after a few weeks was disappointing, you feel like you have to watch the team the WHOLE time, and that’s not what you want to do.

The answer…

Take a look, wander about, listen, observe start making mental notes. What’s working, what’s not… and what are they doing to look so busy yet be so ineffective!

Ask  yourself…

  • Are they doing “administrivia” and dragging it out to fill time.
  • Are they calling suppliers to get useless info for customers who probably won’t buy anyway, or only want a small quantity of a low priced item.
  • Chatting about ‘garbage’, or doing silly rubbish, which is personal, rather than getting to the tasks, which really need to happen.
  • Are your management team, managing too much and not leading enough? Are they not in a position to connect with staff due to too much paper work, or other garbage which is really just a waste of time.

Any of these can take the wind out of the sails of your business, but before you call one of those “rant and rave” meetings to put the wind up people (which will just buy you more enemies anyway). Consider a different approach.

(And yes here’s the answer/s…)

  • Check out if the team has great technology to support them and make the tasks easy to achieve.
  • Make sure your systems are easy to learn, follow and implement.
  • Use multitasking to keep them mentally stimulated and able to do various new tasks from time to time.
  • Chat to them about what works from their point of view, become a “one on one focus group leader” with each person and get REAL information, not the sort that filters up through the ranks and becomes watered down as a result.
  • Ask what keeps them coming to work, and not just money and holidays.
  • Coach your management team to do the same, train them to build rapport, not build ramshackle bridges to nowhere.

In all honesty if you set up a great business to begin with, you will probably find it can remain that way, but it may need some of your original passion for the business to shine through, so the results you want to achieve can be very tangible, you just need to have the right things happening in the right way… Now go out there and make YOUR business highly effective and get the people doing more of the right things in the right way. Then and ONLY THEN will you really profit from the business you started out with so passionately.

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Workplace Bullying Policy

Jun 14

Posted by Steve Gray in Health and Safety Dept, Human Resource Management, Leadership, People!, Planning, Risk Management | No Comments

Don’t turn off and stop reading because you are a small business, Don’t stop reading because you believe you have all the bases covered on this one, and just because your people in the HR department say there is no need for such a thing due to no cases of it at this point be wary of that.

Imagine you employ a bright eyed graduate or fresh faced school leaver brimming with interest and potential, then after a few weeks you see them with less of a smile, less of a pep in their step. For most people watching this person they might say, yep the realities of being in a job have kicked in, he he!

That can be the case, but what if they have found their supervisor or a co-worker has given then some grief, a few terse words, a few statements which have impacted on their esteem. This might seem like petty stuff but the impact of this sort of situation can get out of hand very quickly, the worker may feel powerless, in a bind, awkward, berated, useless and so on.

Your business has a duty of care,  you have a duty of care and this needs to be stated up front that everyone in the organisation also has a duty of care. Therefore that being the case guidelines need to be in place to clearly out line what actions are taken in situations like this and to spell out some basics as to what might constitute bullying, harassment and other situations which might impact a persons esteem.

Okay so now a bunch of  you are saying “Hey the hell do I have to care about a persons esteem? Heck I pay them to do a job, they should do it and put up with the situation, they should harden up, the world is a tough place…”

My view on that is how can you not care about a person you employ… If you are not into caring, avoid being in business. If you don’t care, your customers won’t either and then your staff will soon disappear. Yes it’s that basic, and you need to ensure you have the situation covered or you could be caught out VERY QUICKLY.

So do the right thing and have one ready to implement now, I suggest at the very least you do a search on google and see what comes up, grab one that suits and use it. for a rock solid start try the public service in your country and see what they have you can edit to make it your own. one I looked at recently had a 44 page doc you could download easily enough and it had various examples as well. http://www.apsc.gov.au/ethics/respect.pdf

To finish, imagine this, you are interviewing people for a job, on telling them about the organisation you are able to show them a copy of your bullying policy. It shows you care, it shows you will not tolerate people who don’t care, it shows you want to have happy people enjoying being part of the team, together everyone feels safe and in a organisation which values people, enough said…

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Basics are basics…

Jun 1

Posted by Steve Gray in Finance, Growth, Leadership, Risk Management, Starting out in business | No Comments

It’s June 2009 the global financial crisis is still happening. Watched a documentary on Chinese businesses going under, huge factories closed down, lots of out of region migrant workers now displaced. Sure this was one province (Guangdong) and particularly one city Dong Guan, so probably not a big cross section to measure by. The show was on SBS Australia’s Dateline (May 31) and showed a range of businesses closed and gutted out.

Here’s a quote from the show “In Guangdong province alone, 60,000 factories have now closed down and millions of migrant workers are searching for work.”

My first thought was what were they making? well it’s interesting the businesses included a printing plant, toy factories, and jewelry manufacturing… My second thought was do they make for the local market or export, export… third question, is the product a need or a want, mainly want.

So it comes down to the basics if the majority of what is produced is not for needs when a downturn comes the wants are dropped first. When an external order from overseas is pulled then the whole thing can collapse quickly. as the local economy is hanging on wants, the failure of one is felt across all.

Learn from this huge scale disaster and make sure you have a balance of income from needs based sources as well as wants based sources. If you have shares in a grocery company Co for example it seems logical that they supply the needs of people, then take your own business think about how you can supply to the needs based customers. Think carefully about this as a form of insurance to ensure you can balance your wants and needs to ensure sustainability.

Happiness – workplace style…

May 19

Posted by Steve Gray in Excellence!, Human Resource Management, Leadership, People! | No Comments

Just for a moment think about your life, do you do things better when you are happy or grumpy/sad? Now think about business, do  you prefer to deal with people who are grumpy/sad or happy?

It’s a no brainer really, however there are many people looking to change jobs, move on, move up, move out! Why generally because they are unhappy. As an employer it’s part of your unwritten “duty of care” to provide an environment where staff are happy.

A small family business might seem like a great thing and how you treat family can be quite different from general staff. You might be happy to work at an old desk loaded with irrelevant papers and bits and pieces, but an employee probably will be put off by that.

I guess the moral of this is think about it. Take time to evaluate, if a new employee is due to start next week, make it a major priority to make their starting off in your business fantastic.

Here’s a few reasons why:

  • Change can be difficult for people, new surrounds new names, new everything! It can take a while to get used to.
  • Moving jobs means altering routines, wake up times, transport changes, family routines alter.
  • A new job with different systems can take quite a while to adapt to.
  • A new role may mean there are changes to who is leading who, this can cause challenges.
So imagine starting them off in the ideal situation…
  • Start them with half a day’s work, late in a week, so there is little monday rush and weekend panic.
  • Be their “work buddy” show them where everything is and how things are done.
  • Check in with them regularly to see what stands out as issue, then aim to resolve them fast.
  • Make sure all the “paperwork” is sorted for their superannuation and so on, early…
  • Advise all other staff to wear their name tags more often in that start up phase so the new person does not stress about things like names.
We could make a really long list here (please do!) and I hope you get the idea. Happiness even in a recession is vital to ensure your staff perform to their best ability, perhaps not in the short term but later on when they are up to speed.
Make time to be there for the new recruit and ensure as many things as possible go right for them so they feel at ease.

Change, innovation and pure survival…

Oct 29

Posted by Steve Gray in Excellence!, Innovation and Creativity, Leadership, Planning, Risk Management, The Board Room | 1 Comment

In the tumultuous financial crisis and the uncertainty it causes, there is one thing for certain, Change is happening. Sure it’s not a change that organisations implemented, and for many it’s a change they did not have a contingency plan for but it’s happening and if your organisation needs to do something about it, then your training in innovation will put  you in good stead… What’s that you have no training in innovation… ooh.

Well lets get one thing straight the ability to handle change is important, the attitude, the planning, the stance the leadership skills, they are all important in an age where Improvise, adapt, overcome becomes the hallmark of a survivor.

If you need to be able to think about new strategies and brainstorm with others, then petty office politics and ineffective interpersonal communication needs to be put aside. In a crisis it can be “every man for himself” or “Lets get the team together and nut out the best way forward NOW…”

Either way it probably comes down to you the leader to find a way forward, to make the right moves (or at least have a go) sure you might make mistakes, sure the road might be tough, sure there can be unexpected thing pop up, but if you don’t face reality then you might be wondering what’s happening next.

Wonder no longer, and be the one that sets the team up to thrive, if they fall short of that they survive, so the high goal needs to be there to ensure things go on. It’s up to the senior people in the organisation to provide the leadership, to use innovative and creative techniques.

In sot if you are not providing the right environment, skills, attitudes and mindset to make it through then folks the end is nigh, but if you are putting you best feet forwad, then if the grim hand of failure comes your way you will have known you put in a top effort to weather the storm. I guess the decision to act and make a stand is up to you, or not…

On the edge…

Oct 27

Posted by Steve Gray in Excellence!, Franchisees, Innovation and Creativity, Leadership, Planning, Risk Management | No Comments

When tough times strike my heart goes out to those businesses on the edge, and of course instead of talking about daily things that can trip up a marginal business, we are now talking about bigger fundamental global meltdown type trip ups.

So when the going gets tough how many of the businesses on the edge have a debt reserve fund, or a plan b, or an innovative structure, system, marketing plan etc to get them out of the jam? probably too few. Then on the business front, if they are a “want” type of business do they have their fingers in the pie of a “needs based” business to be able to handle the changing spend patterns of consumers… probably not.

Here’s 8 quick points to give you the edge in tough times.

  1. Have a plan A, then have a plan B, just in case!
  2. Have some reserves, stuff happens so be ready for downturns.
  3. Needs based V’s Want based, if you sell gifts for example, you might want to look at developing a needs based business to complement it, this way you cover your butt when customers walk away from the niceties. Consider diversifying into an online business of some kind that is easy to manage from your want based business, get busy while it’s quiet.
  4. Keep marketing, but make sure it’s making you money, don’t throw money out and get NOTHING back, measure it carefully, get smart about how it works.
  5. Keep the team informed, fear can run deep and fast, let them know what you are doing or plan to do to weather the storm. Batten down the hatches but make sure they know where the exits are…
  6. Lead, now more than ever the team needs you, teach them GREAT customer service, if people get picky  you need to have the BEST people upfront, with the BEST service, now more than ever. Get out on the floor and look for gaps, are they smiling, are they happy, do they know the products and or services inside and out? No? train them…
  7. Be nimble, change is a given so learn to love it, zig when the others lag or zag. This way you can be there when the others have fallen by the wayside.
  8. Improve your systems, now is a great time to tighten up on how things tick over, ask hard questions like “Are we doing things the best way?” “How can I jump start and or utilise my peoples collective intelligence to give us a lasting edge?”

You get the idea, make a difference, a poisitive difference so your business can take on the challenges tough times provide and see it through successfully. So jump up to the whiteboard and make a start NOW!

Think Globally, Act Locally

Sep 21

Posted by Steve Gray in Excellence!, Growth, Leadership, People!, Planning, Risk Management, The Board Room | No Comments

I have just been to see WALL•E the animated film, it was fantastic, the graphics, the story, the whole concept was exceptional. So the environmental message? Yep there was one, and as such I figure on a local basis we can be doing things to prevent a “Wall – E – World” from happening… (hey that’s not new is it…)

I know our “Local Authorities” have a long term plan, is it all about growth or does it take into account looking after things,  being the guardians of the planet at a local level. If “all hell broke loose” Could our region survive? Would we have enough of the “right resources” to keep going?

Chances are the long term plan is laced with “Innovation” and “Leadership”, “growth” and the such like, yet down on the ground realistic local action that I can tangibly say “Yep they’re doing something…” is not visible.

Lets take it to our businesses, do we have the ability to diversify in a way that gives us a support base if things go bad? A Debt Reserve Fund of some kind? A range of other “business interests” that allow us to fully serve the wider community? Mostly… No.

I figure that if I went to the local “Planning guide for the next 50 years” created by local authorities and searched in there for business “goals” or “ideals” to assist my business I might go away a bit befuddled by the academic language, the jargon and the rhetoric, however I probably should be silent until I see the “beast” and let it prove me wrong, (or right…)

I urge all business people to act responsibly and find ways they can make positive impacts at all levels of “stake holder interaction” (there’s my chunk of jargon for the day… :) ) so our future can stand the test of time.

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