Outsourcing for Small Business by KPO WEB » office management

Corporate Image is really an Inside Job

KPO — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:43:34 +0000

For some workers, a job is just a means to an end. Take the worker who repeatedly checks the clock as afternoon ticks toward 5 p.m. Or the worker earning $10 an hour, who has a job only so he can afford to escape to the desert on weekends to ride dirt bikes.

There is nothing wrong with this, unless you are the company that employs these workers.

According to Moshe Engelberg, president of a consulting firm, it is an aspect of human nature that people work harder when they care about what they are doing. And that is something every employer should be concerned about.

He further stated that clients complain that no one knows what their company does or that they misunderstand the company which actually means that they have no internal focus.

Before a company can create public image or establish brand identity, an internal identity must be developed.

A lot of businesses ad to its work force but sometimes they are not as attentive as they should be to keeping corporate goals in the minds of their workers.

Engelberg uses the Center for Disease Control (CDC) as an example. He was called ion to consult at the federal agency, whose work force had different ideas about he organization’s identity.

Some workers thought of the agency as the keeper of America’s health and safety. Others saw it as a trusted information source on health issues. Still others saw it as an important conduit among the nation’s public health agencies.

Engelberg said that the workers in CDC saw different aspects, but they did not see how they fit together into the broader picture.

He was able to link the organization’s focus with those three main aspects, building a unified image for its employees.

According to him, people want to do work that matters. He said that if there is a focus for the company, it helps them connect with the goals and makes them want to work harder. Companies such as Southwest airlines, Nordstrom and Home Depot are high-profile examples of companies that have energized their work forces and corporate goals.

He stated further that those workers who seem to be happier in their companies than other workers in other companies are people who know what the company is trying to achieve and feel that they are contributing toward that.

Some companies never reach that point. Engelberg contends that they lack customer focus by failing to realize that those employees are one set of customers.

Workers who see a connection between their jobs and the success of the company feel it within themselves, and the company benefits.

That internal commitment translates into everything the company does, and it is reflected in how is customers view it.

How to Deal with Co-Workers Effectively

KPO — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 19:17:40 +0000

It is nice to exercise freedoms and feelings at work as well as off work. The problem is that everybody feels that way, and since the office brings people together, they can easily get in each other’s way.

When there are seven, 70, or 700 in the staff or in a building, reality dictates that they work together as some form of a team, with a single purpose and spirit. In this situation unbridled individualism can really muddy the water or ruffle the feathers.

Hence, the number one requirement for work efficiency and enjoyment: compatibility. Working with co-workers means magnanimity, not just proximity.

The team approach

No matter how good you are at our job, you often need help around the office, and finding an ally is a smart move towards simplifying work. It can be someone who works with you, for you, or even just around you – someone you can call on when a task is better done by two.

Someone who can be trusted to pass on a message in your absence, cover for you, suggest you not send that angry letter, make a joke when you take yourself too seriously.

When you head a team, the ideal assistants are the ones you can give an assignment to and just let hem run it – research things as necessary, and then carry through. To achieve this:

Make them part of the process of decision-making.
Take them to meetings with you.
Fill them in on the whole and they will do their part better.
Give them specific goals but let them tell you how they are going to get there.
Do not do all the interesting work yourself and leave all the boring, brainless stuff for them.
Give them things that challenge their abilities and knowledge; let them become team experts in some areas.
Do not let yourself get so busy that you fail to communicate with them regularly (and that does not mean once every other week as you are rushing out the door).

If you accomplish a task early, help your team members out. When someone is stuck with a problem, try to help find the solution. Such efforts get reciprocated.

Never make a job indispensable, it is too much pressure for any one person. Arrange things do everyone has relief.

Kind coaxing, or a cuff on the side of the head? The other part of the team has not gotten its share of something done, and it is undermining your efforts. The options:

Bad: Ask them again and beg and whine for it.
Worse: Report them to the boss – you have just made new enemies.
Worst: Shame them in front of everyone – you have just made new eternal enemies.
Marginally better: Do it for them – generally the quickest and simplest solution, but a bad precedent.
Best: Diplomacy. Offer to help them do it and schedule time to do so.

Unreliability usually is not a lack of skill or ability, but of commitment. It can be corrected by nailing down expectations (the job or assignment, its time, the place, the requirements) and then asking just three questions of the person to whom it has been assigned.

Do you really want to do it?
Do you have full instructions for it?
Will you do it?

If the answer to all of the above is yes, wait a while, and ask one question more: Did you do it? If the answer is no, you do not need their “help.”

Giving and getting clear instructions

Let’s say you are willing, ambitious person, arriving fresh and inexperienced on a ranch, and the foreman says simply, “Go get the cows.” That is clear objective but not clear instruction. Whether you are giving instructions or asking for them, strive for clarity:

Where are the cows?
Do we want them dead or alive?
Shall I use the pinto or shank’s mare?
What’s our brand?
How many cows are there? What breed?
Both cows and calves?
Where should they be corralled? Where do you want them after I get them?

Meetings – When Participants Disagree

KPO — Sun, 31 May 2009 03:30:05 +0000

If you are in-charge of a meeting, it can be very frustrating when the participants start disagreeing. Precious time is wasted and decisions are left unmade. So how should you handle the situation?

Use Humor

When nothing else seems to diffuse tension between disagreeing participants, you might as well crack a joke ease up frayed nerves. Humor can be refreshing, but a word of caution: Don’t ever crack a joke at the expenses of either of the disagreeing party. That will only worsen the situation.

Proper Seating Arrangement

If you are aware (even before the meeting) that some of the participants are on opposing sides, then it may be wiser to seat them beside one another instead of across. People are more prone to confrontation when they are facing each other than when they are seated side by side.

Stay On Line
Always remind the participants to stick to the topic being discussed. There is a natural tendency for people to disagree especially when they get all fired up from disagreeing. Once you allow either of the disagreeing parties to stray, you will not get anywhere.

Don’t Take Sides

When heated arguments continue, taking sides is the fastest way to turn the situation into a disaster. Be neutral at all times. Reserve your opinion up to the time when your decision should finally be aired.

Postpone

If the disagreement leads into a heated argument, then the best thing to do is to postpone the discussion. When nerves are frayed, it is hard to come up with wise discussions.

Clear the Clutter

It used to be said that an empty desk is the sign of an empty mind. Not anymore. A streamlined desk is considered to be the sign of an organized, competent, productive employee.

Here are ways to clear the clutter on your desk:

Gather all loose papers and files and put them into one or two large piles.
Sort the papers into four categories: To do, To pay, To file and To read.
Delegate, re-route or toss the rest.
Throw out at least one-third of the material in the “To read” stack. There simply isn’t time. Concentrate on magazines relating directly to your business.
Turn the large file drawer in your desk into a project or action drawer, containing current projects and items that are time sensitive.
Go through and set priorities for the papers in your To Do box every day. Otherwise. It will be a dumping ground and important papers may be overlooked.

Handling an Over-the-Hill Employee

KPO — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:39:40 +0000

James, a newly-installed manager in a manufacturing firm has a problem and it goes by the name of George, a production engineer directly under his supervision. They were just given an order by a foreign client and it was standard operating procedure for the company to create small work units that would handle the order.

To handle the account, the company chose George, a 50-year-old engineer to work with James, the up-and-coming manager. The pairing, the management thought, was inspired. George would provide the knowledge and experience while James would provide the corporate savvy needed to secure the reliability of the delivery.

As such, James assigned George to head the unit that was comprised of several 20- to 30-year-old engineers and tool makers. Based from the fact that George has been with the company for several years and that the job was something he did countless of times before as one of the production engineers, James put his complete trust on him.

All in all, James thought, he would not encounter any problem and expected “smooth sailing” in the weeks and months to come.

How wrong James was.

As production ensued, James received reports that the order might experience delays due to George, who was described by one company manger indirectly working for James, as an “over-the-hill production engineer, solely in need of being let go.”

Luckily, James was more conscientious in judging character and ability and as sure that despite George’s age, the latter still had the “juice” to come up with his best work. But what could James as a manger do? Should he fire George or disregard the accusations leveled against the man?

Here are some useful steps that James followed in determining whether George was indeed over the hill.

Get the facts. Determine the employee’s past experience with the company. Look at his interests and see whether it has a bearing on the present situation. Talk to his previous supervisors and ask them whether a similar situation (e.g. unreliability) arose in the past.
Talk to the person. Talking to previous supervisors, however, is not a foolproof way of determining the reasons why a person is working below par. James asked George if he could discuss several things with him. George agreed and the information that James got was priceless. It seems that George was indeed discouraged because of the promotion that he did not get.
What to do. As expected, George promised James that he would try not to be bothered by previous disappointments. For his part, James promised George that he would try to incorporate developmental training in George’s functions so that the latter could add on to his knowledge and thus make him feel “not left out.”

Sometimes, being over the hill is not just a chronological state but a mental state as well.