More and more media are identifying that the pressure is being put on employees when management and business owners have decided to reduce staff through redundancies or not replacing people when they leave. Something I have noticed a lot of while visiting clients or at networking events, is the flow-on effect that this can have on the remaining staff.
Stress, extra workload, overtime, re-training and up-skilling of staff seem to be common ground and in the short term employees don’t seem to mind, but if this occurs for a long period people seem to feel unvalued and this approach can cause a gradual slowing of workload and limited tasks completed.
Whilst the media are quick at using the ‘recession’ as a reason for why this is happening, it would seem that this has been occurring for quite some time prior as people would resign from the role to seek the gratification and recognition of workload elsewhere, and although at present those people are still employed, they are reluctant to leave unless they have a secure position to go to as their salary is so important.
While delegating additional responsibility to others can be seen as a way to advance an employee into another position, the more additional tasks they undertake, the lower the quality of work will be achieved as they try and spread themselves too thin, this can and does have a dramatic effect on the business as a whole.
Whilst employee retention and redundancies can’t be avoided, what are some solutions to try and balance the employee’s workload?
ü Try identifying the right candidate for the right role, when an employee resigns and you are not replacing that position, think about who can do those important tasks competently, and then consider what tasks they can then shift to another person doing similar duties. Only focus on the important tasks as these are the ones that will ensure the business continues to run smoothly while there is an absence in that role.
ü Recognise employees for the extra work they are undertaking, there are plenty of non-monetary rewards available to ensure they feel valued.
ü Give employees assurances that this is for the short term and keep your word, too many broken ‘promises’ just lead to disorder and confusion.
ü Consider combining all the small tasks several employees are completing and combining it into a temporary, part time or casual position, this will ensure that these continue to remain up to date. The skill set of the candidate may not necessary need to be at the same level as previous and handover or training will only require minimum attention.
ü Finally, consider contracting work out to businesses such as AdminCorp to complete those day to day tasks. The difference between us and a temping agency is that you have to guarantee a minimum workload, with us it is minute by minute for only what needs to be done. The other major advantage to using businesses like ours is that you only have to train us once, not try and get the same temp as last time etc.
Call AdminCorp today on 0800 ADMINC to see how we can help your business today. This is what we do best!
Tara McGowan
No matter how many courses you do, you still don't get the time management mastered? Why is that?
Generally its because one way of time management doesn't suit everyone. Each course you do, is another person's methodology which suits a percentage but not all.
So what do you do? Your choices are;
1. hire an assistant that knows how to manage a boss without overiding the boss
2. work out your methodology and document it in simple brief terminology so you can remind yourself of it quickly
Still not convinced! try documenting your methodology and then fine tune it to how it should work.
So once you have this worked out, there is still another important point to add;
1. if you hire an assistant - you must hand over control, no point doing this if you can't hand over control
2. once your methodology is documented - you must be consistent and disciplined.
Here's a brief sample of a time management methodology;
1. check emails every 45 minutes
2. plan the next week out in your diary
3. make calls at 2pm each day
4. receive calls between 10am and 2pm each day
and so on ...
I visited the expo on Wednesday prepared to spend the day gathering as much information as I can on businesses who I could use within my company, looking for new ideas and that ‘something to catch my eye’.
Formally known as the Small Business Expo, I was impressed with the stands on offer, the majority of them were focussed on accounting packages, credit control, IT products and Banks. Whilst the theme was based around “smart marketing” many of these stands were concentrated on database management, CRM (customer relationship management) and advertising.
I attended a Smart Marketing School session and found it interesting. It was a great way to meet other business owners while brainstorming strategies we could all use in business today.
This was definitely for the small business owners / operators and found that I didn’t need to spend the entire day at the expo, it did help having a plan of what I wanted to achieve while there but did manage to receive a bag full of brochures, price lists and special ‘expo only’ offers to bring home.
My tip for the expo? Look on the website www.bizzone.com and find out what seminars or speakers you really want to see; then plan your visit around that time. Its well worth the trip.
Tara McGowan.
Who is spending your business time? You, your staff, your clients?
When work starts at 9am is everyone sitting at their station ready to work or are they just walking through door? Do you get sidetracked by issues? Are your clients leading you astray?
Doesn't matter who or what or when, your business time is valuable and you need to account for it. Here are three simple steps to get you underway.
- Set an example of working from the start time not arriving at the start time.
- Set billable hourly targets daily for your staff and contractors.
- Give your clients boundaries.
I've commented on a couple of blogs recently regarding Xero.com. The latest one here has some great conversation basically comparing Xero.com to MYOB.co.nz.
Not that Xero should be compared to MYOB. Just like Quicken doesn't need to be compared to MYOB. They all cater to different markets. There are similarities but they each do something specific very well.
Xero is a fantastic cashbook with invoicing ability. MYOB has a suite of simple products that cater to many industries. Quicken is an advanced business user program that offers more complex reporting abilities. These are just some generic differences and there are many more.
If you need inventory, Quicken and MYOB can do this, Xero doesn't offer this but may do so in the future. If you want automated daily bank feed, Xero can offer this. If you need multiple currencies, MYOB can offer this and so on and so on.
So list what you need and start eliminating those programs that don't fit.
If you are motivated by price, this is very important as MYOB and Quicken charge a purchase price once whereas Xero you pay a monthly fee of $49. MYOB BBO (business basics online) is approximately $25 per month. Although Xero and BBO don't charge for updates. To add to the mix CashManager will be rolling out their online version shortly too.
So, do your homework and work out what is important to you, they all do a fantastic job.
Not sure what to do? Email or call us 0800 ADMINC and we'll do a free assessment report for you outlining your options.
Want even more information, check out Ben Kepes Blog here.
With so many applications available today one could quite possibly find themselves in a position where there are too many tools and not enough features working for your business.
Its great to use one program for this and another for that but when you get too many programs, you fail to use them effectively.
So narrow the scope. You may have to sacrifice one great feature but narrow the scope to a managable set of tools.
You can narrow the scope to 2 or 5 or 10 or 20 depending on how much time or delegation ability you have.
You need to ask yourself these questions when narrowing the scope:
1. Is this application going to take me into the future or is it going to be defunct in 18 months time?
2. Does the application have data exportability? i.e. export to .csv or API.
3. Can I customise some of these features or add my own?
4. Is there another application that will do what I'm doing now plus more or even include another applications features so I can narrow things further?
Lately we have implemented the following to narrow our scope:
1. Ping.fm - to feed out updates to 4 of our social networks at once.
2. Zoho CRM - a long term project to take over our newsletter and webform integration.
Most programs have many features that need to be discovered and implemented. So find them and use them!
I took some time during the long weekend to test out a few tools. Being a social networker I want something that is going to make my life easier, so here are the two tools out of the several that I tried that I have kept.
www.digsby.com is a desktop application keeping you up to date with your social networks and who’s online. I've put my msn/yahoo/facebook chat into its widget and you just chat with everyone through it. I also put in my www.linkedin.com, www.twitter.com and www.facebook.com information in and now it keeps me up to date. I have auto-loaded this so everytime I open my laptop, it signs in. Also, I added a little chat widget to my personal blog www.worklifeballs.weebly.com so people can chat to me if they want.
www.ping.fm is an online application where you can update your social networks at once. I've added my www.linkedin.com, www.twitter.com, www.facebook.com and www.plaxo.com networks and now all I have to do is enter my update into ping.fm and it feeds out to these networks.
A colleague of mine attended a seminar last week with a notable speaker thinking they were going to take away some much needed motivation. She didn't care about the topic, she just wanted to come away feeling rejuvinated and motivated and receive benefit for her time and money.
About 10 minutes into the session she sat their thinking "if they're just going to continue to sell their wares, I'm leaving" ... 10 minutes later she's thinking "surely they're not going to continue trying to sell me their recession proof system for $1695, surely not" .... 20 minutes later she walked out and as she walked out she noted she was leading a group of approximately 20 likeminded people.
The whole time you're sitting there thinking "when am I going to receive some information that will help me, I've given up time in my day to be here! It was a very slick sales process where one by one they removed objections to sell their system. Not one item of tangible value could be seen it was so clouded by the sales pitch.
What was worse was the venue was filled with hundreds of business owners wanting to hear something beneficial in this market.
So my colleague said that she would have stayed if the tangible value was foremost and upfront but she failed to see how that would come after 40 minutes of selling.
Not only that we googled some of the information and found it free on the internet. So spend wisely your money and your time.
As a member of the AAPNZ (Association of Administrative professionals New Zealand) I see a lot of behind the scenes work of those adding value to our profession. And now more than ever do we need to convey the value within ourselves and our roles as administrators.
Haven't you noticed that administration is a very technical vocation now. Sure you can maintain manual systems of old but if you couple those with technical solutions available today you open up a brand new world of administration and office management.
So what do we all get for it? You as a business owner, what do you give for it? Sometimes its not always easy to pay top dollar for a good administrator, so what else can you do to value the role?
* Send your administrator to the annual Administrators Professionals Day Event in your area.
* Send your administrator to the annual AAPNZ conference.
* Nominate your administrator for the Administrator of the Year Award.
* Purchase a member subscription to AAPNZ in your area for your administrator.
When you come across an exceptional employee that is Gen Y don't expect them to stay that way if you don't skill yourself with information about how and why they work.
To keep them you must learn as much as you can about them and adapt your management style to work effectively with them.
The tools are out there so there are no excuses. Search the internet for information and use providers when you need to, preferably before things start to go haywire.
They're not going to go haywire, I hear you say... lets talk in 6 months time...
Every employee has the potential to be great and as managers we need to ensure we have that pathway open.
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