Employees Are Your Best Consultants

The best consultants for your business are your employees. They can help you with a wide variety of issues because they deal with them every day. Many times employees have great ideas, but are reluctant to come forward out of fear or simply because they feel their ideas won't be taken seriously. Develop a system that requires and allows all employees to be active "internal consultants". Suggestion boxes and anonymous systems tend to not work because employees don't feel compelled to submit ideas. Or they have in the past and their ideas have been ignored or someone else took credit for them. Setting up profit teams that submit and refine suggestions works in some organizations. Requiring work units to submit suggestions for their own areas on a defined, regular interval has worked well in others. In both cases, making suggestions and developing ways to enhance profits become a part of every employee's job.

Create a reward system that pays all employees for enhanced profitability. Make the rewards significant enough to incent the employees. Profit sharing is most common, but you can also pay on cost savings, productivity gains or any other unit of measure that makes sense for your company.

Low Employee Morale

Employee morale is a fuzzy issue at best. Measuring morale can be difficult and inconclusive since employees will often not reveal their true feelings. But make no mistake about it. Employee morale has a major impact on productivity and ultimately profitability.

Most of the time, we will have a sense about the level of morale within a work unit or company as a whole. It is not hard to see when morale is generally high or when it is generally low. Employee groups that work hard, smile and have a little bounce in their step when they come to work would seem to have a high level of morale. Those that seem unhappy, don't interact much and generally seem disinterested in their work are probably suffering from morale problems.

It is not uncommon for a particular employee to suffer from low morale and this can be attributed to a number of factors including poor job fit, a personality conflict with a co-worker, personal problems or difficulty fitting in. While this is an issue of importance, this Quick Tip will focus on widespread work unit and company morale issues.

When a work unit or the company as a whole is affected by low or insufficient morale, the root cause can very often be traced back to the person in charge. Ultimately the manager of a work unit brings a certain philosophy and style to work that directly impacts his/her employees. Unfortunately there are a number of unenlightened managers and supervisors in the business world who don't understand the impact they have on their employees. As a manager or supervisor, look closely at your style and approach. It is the single most important factor in morale issues. See An Introduction to Team Building and High Employee Turnover for more insight into this issue.

In order to get a better feel for the level of morale in your work unit or organization, pay close attention to your employees' behavior. Do they appear to enjoy their work and those around them? Does there seem to be a problem employee in terms of being "poisonous" to the environment by making life difficult for those around them? How do employees seem to react to you? Do they seem fearful or tentative around you or are they open and willing to discuss issues?

If there is an employee who seems to cause problems for those around them, they must be dealt with. This is when the coaching and counseling skills of a good manager come to bear. That problem employee needs to be coached and counseled to change his/her behavior to better blend with co-workers. If the employee simply can't change, the company is usually better off without that employee. If nothing is done, the message that gets sent to employees is that one problem employee is going to be put ahead of the welfare and morale of all other employees. This is a very damaging message to send.

Morale is something that needs to be managed. Take these steps to better manage the morale of your employees:
-Create an environment that is fun and lively.
-Carefully evaluate your management style. Is it facilitating in nature or is it dictatorial or overly assertive and direct.
-Encourage employees to come forward with problems, suggestions and issues. Listen carefully and acknowledge their concerns. Follow up on them and communicate results of your findings back to them. Don't leave them hanging.
-Address compensation and benefits to make certain that you are competitive with the market.
-Be consistent in how you administer rules and policies.
-Be fair and reasonable.
-Set expectations for all employees about team work and working cooperatively. Let it be known that you expect employees to get along while on the job.
-Be clear in your expectations and follow up when they aren't met. Don't ignore low performers. -If they can't become good employees, terminate them. Bad employees affect those around them.
-Don't allow double standards. What's good for one employee is good for all of them.
-Eliminate a punitive mentality. Don't make employees feel that they will be punished if they make mistakes.
-Encourage innovation and creativity.
-Show employees that you care about them.
-Communicate as much as possible to all employees. Keep them well informed about what's going on in the business.
-Look at the work environment. Is it light and airy or is it dark, dreary and counterproductive?

Don't ignore morale issues within your work unit or company. They can be extremely detrimental to your success. Remember that high morale usually equals high productivity.

Awareness Can Be Important To Your Credibility

Competing in today's markets can be difficult. It is made even more difficult by a lack of awareness of your business, product or service on the part of prospective customers. Positioning your company properly in the minds of potential customers is a critical, yet often overlooked part of promotional strategy.

When you are faced with several competitors in a market, it is likely that the firm with the highest level of market awareness will have some level of credibility established unless it has somehow deteriorated its reputation. If that firm has credibility through a higher level of awareness in the market, it will generally have a competitive advantage. But why?

It is well known that people are swayed by awareness of a particular company. They might know very little about that organization, but a company that has done a good job of frequently putting its name out in front of the market with a subtle message about the quality of its products or services or by presenting a highly professional look and image will entrench itself in the subconscious of the prospective buyers. When the buyer is ready to buy, the fact that they already have a positive image of the company and/or its products and services will serve as a compelling reason to at least consider that company and its products or services heavily.

A well planned and executed awareness campaign can establish a real sense of quality in the minds of those who represent your market. Suppose your sales people are making calls and competing with firms that have established themselves in the minds of the prospective buyer. Your firm is a relative unknown and people know virtually nothing about you. The dilemma that the buyer faces has to do with risk. Are they willing to take a risk and purchase something from you when they can buy the same type of product or service from a company that has credibility with them. That credibility might have been established simply by using institutional ads to attack the subconscious of the buyer by putting the name and some subtle message about quality or image in front of the market on a frequent basis.

Think about many of the ads you see or hear. They could appear on television, in a newspaper or magazine or on a billboard. You might hear them on the radio. A majority of those ads are insitutional in nature by virtue of the fact that they are not selling something specific. They are positioning the product or company in the minds of the prospective buyers and creating high levels of awareness. When the buyer is approached to buy one or more of its products or services, the fact that they have awareness of the company reduces the risk of doing business with that firm.

A very bad argument against this type of campaign is that they are expensive and don't sell product. While such a campaign might be expensive, they certainly don't have to be. And the argument that they don't sell product is pure nonsense. That argument is usually used by the unenlightened as a way of covering up the, "I'm too cheap to do things right" syndrome. Awareness and image campaigns are designed to instill credibility. Therefore, they take time to work. Most business people don't have the necessary patience to see such a campaign through. And institutional campaigns are more difficult to measure in terms of direct impact on sales. But the impact of the campaigns can be measured through pre and post campaign market research efforts designed to measure awareness and credibility levels.

Budget for some sort of campaign that is designed to position your product, service or business properly in the mind of your prospective buyer. It doesn't necessarily have to be a media advertising campaign. Newsletters and direct mail can often be used effectively. But keep in mind that the best campaigns generally use a combination of mediums and methods in positioning the company. Using an advertising agency for any sort of significant promotional campaign is recommended.

Attributes Of Successful Long-Term Businesses

We believe there are attributes that are common to successful businesses. While there are probably others, we feel that the twelve attributes below represent the most important:

1. They are focused on the customer and gather feedback and input from the customer on a regular and consistent basis.

2. They understand the concept of relationship development, both internally and externally and they work hard at forming new relationships and strengthening old ones.

3. They are externally-driven (customer) rather than internally- driven (operations).

4. They have a high percentage of talented and high performing employees.

5. They understand how to apply their resources in a manner that maximizes their opportunity for success.

6. They have a high level of morale and teamwork and foster that kind of environment.

7. They do not constantly shift and change priorities.

8. They have well defined and simple, efficient processes.

9. They have a long-term mentality.

10. They have a long-range plan with goals that all employees understand.

11. They spend money wisely and are not afraid to spend money to the benefit of the organization.

12. They have strong and effective communication taking place consistently and regularly.

Don't Let Customer Service Be Your Downfall

Customer service is a broad term generally used to define how well customers are served by the organizations they do business with. Our experience and observations indicate that there has been a deterioration of customer service levels in many businesses in recent years. This stems primarily from poor attention to detail and a lack of a customer-orientation throughout the business. Bear in mind that your business should be striving to provide nothing short of outstanding customer service.

It is a well known fact that customer service is one of the primary factors in a customer's decision to purchase again from a particular business. When customer service falls below the expectations of the customer, the likelihood of that customer buying again from that business diminishes. Every contact that a customer has with a business should be considered an opportunity by the business to cement a relationship with the customer.

We believe there are three key components to providing outstanding customer service:
1) hiring,
2) discipline and
3) consistency.

Let's look at each of them in more detail:

Hiring. The ability to deliver outstanding customer service is, without question, dependent upon the quality of employees hired. Employees who are not able to deal with customers effectively can have a devastating effect on perceptions of the business. And employees who cannot execute according to well-defined procedures will cause mistakes, delays and frustration. Laziness and lack of a thorough screening process are key reasons why marginal employees are hired.

Discipline. This term refers to doing things right on a highly consistent basis. A key assumption is that your business has well-defined procedures and processes that are customer-oriented and efficient. Once those are established it is essential that there be a very clear expectation of all employees involved that they execute their tasks exactly as defined. Managers must be able to hold employees accountable for meeting that expectation! When employees are allowed to deviate from the process/procedure or not follow rules, there is a lack of discipline.

Consistency. Customers cannot be served well one time and poorly the next. Unfortunately, the vast majority of businesses do not consistently serve their customers at a high level. Think about your own experiences with the businesses you buy from. How many truly deliver outstanding customer service every time you deal with them? We suspect the answer is not many, if any at all.

The inability to deliver outstanding customer service consistently can be the downfall of a business. In simple terms, it can put you out of business. There exists an opportunity for the business that can figure out how to deal with the three components discussed above. Because few, if any, businesses concentrate enough on delivering outstanding customer service, a business that understands how to do it will gain a significant competitive advantage over its competition.

Take the time to evaluate your own business in terms of the three components identified above. Does your business honestly deliver outstanding customer service at a highly consistent level? If the answer is "yes", are you absolutely certain of your answer? We have found that many businesses that thought they were doing an excellent job of serving their customers were actually falling well short of customer expectations. Don't allow your business to fool itself into thinking customers are receiving outstanding service every time they have contact with your company.

Business Problem: High Employee Turnover Quick Tip

A common problem in many organizations. Employee turnover is very costly to any organization. Keep in mind that employee turnover is generally the result of more than one factor. Follow these steps in assessing and dealing with this problem:

1. Ask the employees how they feel about working for the organization. This can be accomplished in several ways, but anonymity is often important because employees often fear retaliation from superiors or peers. Keeping this in mind, it is best to conduct an anonymous survey of the employees. You will want to assess how they view the organization's working environment, their superiors, communication, perceptions about how they feel they are valued by the company, benefits, compensation, attitudes toward company policies, their comfort level with their peers and with their current position as well as other factors specific to your organization. Carefully plan your approach to carrying out the survey process. Employees must feel that they can speak their minds, so to speak. If they don't, the results will be less meaningful. Compile the results and take them seriously. Don't dismiss the results as inaccurate and don't let your ego get in the way of taking the results to heart. If there are issues that really stand out, deal with those first. Prioritize them based on the apparent severity of the problem based on responses to the survey. Methodically develop a plan for dealing with the problems and communicate that plan to employees. The worst thing you can do is conduct a survey to seek input on employee satisfaction and then do nothing with it.

2. Assess your compensation structure relative to your market. If you are paying employees below market wages, the likelihood of employees leaving increases dramatically. While money is probably not the key motivator for employees, they do expect to be paid fairly. That is a given in their minds. Market data is available from a variety of source, but be careful which sources you use. You would be well advised to hire a firm that specializes in compensation work to provide you with the information needed by type of position. If you find you are not meeting market pay scales, develop a plan to get there or beyond. What you spend to get there should be offset by reduced turnover and less "moaning" about wages, therefore productivity should increase if only slightly. Don't underestimate the amount of time employees spend complaining about various things. Don't give them a reason to sit around and complain about their wages relative to the market you operate in.

3. Determine how well employees are suited to the jobs they hold. Almost without exception, the key factor in employee turnover can be traced to ineffective hiring and promotion practices. All too often employees simply do not match the jobs they hold in terms of their intellect, what interests or motivates them and their personalities. In other words, too many employees just are not cut out for the jobs they currently hold. This sets the employee up for failure and certainly impacts the performance of the business. Look at your hiring process. Is sufficient effort really being put into it to determine how well someone will match the job being hired for? What criteria are you using to hire people for various jobs? If your number one criterion for hiring boils down to knowing something about the type of business you are in, this is a prescription for trouble. You can teach a bright person your business. You can't teach them intellect, to be interested in what they do or change their personality. These factors are really the keys to how well someone matches a particular job. Structure employment searches to find people who have the appropriate level of mental ability, a strong interest in doing the type of job being filled and a personality well suited to that job. While it is nice to find someone who has experience in your industry, this should not be the primary factor in hiring. In fact, someone who matches your job well in terms of the factors mentioned above with virtually no experience in your type of business will almost always outperform someone with experience in that industry, but who is a poor match for the job. This requires a shift in thinking in many organizations. Too many owners and managers get hung up on finding people who know their business. Again, bright people can learn your business relatively quickly. Don't get caught in the "my business is unique or complex" trap! When promoting people, you should look for people who match the job being promoted into. Every day we see people who were high performers in one job being promoted into jobs they have little chance of being successful in because they don't match the job. There are several good to excellent assessment tools that help match employees to jobs that can be used in the hiring and promotion process. These tools are critical in augmenting your decision process in hiring and promoting employees. For more information on these tools, see Assessments on this web site.

4. Look at your turnover statistics. Is turnover higher in certain work units, departments or divisions? If so look more closely at the makeup of those areas. Often there is a problem with a manager or supervisor in terms of how they deal with their employees. Or it could be a peer who is a problem employee but is not being dealt with by management. Is your work environment in those areas conducive to a pleasant, productive work day?

5. Overall culture of the organization has a lot to do with employee satisfaction and turnover. What kind of atmosphere exists within your company? Is it pleasant, productive and light or is it heavy handed, gloomy and generally unpleasant? Employees need an environment where they can thrive and feel good about coming into work. By the way, it's ok to introduce some fun into the work day. Take an objective look at your environment.

Refine Processes the Easy Way

What TQM, CQI, reengineering and other process improvement programs advocate is an increase in efficiency through the systematic study and improvement of critical business processes. But what we have found is that many companies approach these programs incorrectly by:

1) selecting unimportant or lower priority processes to study

2) getting bogged down in the analysis rather than focusing on results.

What is a process? Webster's Dictionary defines a process as a "method of doing something will all the steps involved". Businesses are made up of a number of processes, each with varying degrees of complexity in terms of the number of steps involved. These processes are used to carry out functions and activities. For example, something as simple as paying bills or more complex manufacturing or distribution processes are all necessary to keep a business running. How efficient these processes are can have a major impact on customer satisfaction, employee morale and productivity and profitability.

Before proceeding, an organization should inventory all of its important business processes. Once the inventory is completed, the list of processes should be prioritized in terms of their relative importance to the overall success of the company. We believe that the most important processes are generally those that impact customers most directly and most heavily. After the list of processes has been prioritized, begin with the most important process. Select a refinement team of roughly 3 to 7 people. The team should consist of people with and without intimate knowledge of the process. Selecting people without intimate knowledge is important because they can provide a more objective, distant perspective. It is often difficult for those closely involved in a process to "see the forest from the trees". They are often too close to it to be objective or they have such a vested interest in it that they will fight change.

Once the team is in place, have an initial meeting to provide a brief overview of the process and to collectively list the steps (flow chart) the process in question. Have someone record the steps involved in the proper order. That individual will be responsible for preparing a draft of the flow chart and distributing it to each member of the team within a day or two of the initial meeting. Schedule a second meeting that should take place within about a week or so. In the meantime, the team should be individually looking at each and every step of the process and evaluating whether that step is:

1) appropriate

2) necessary at all.

In the second meeting, the group will begin discussing each step of the process. Each member of the team should provide input as to whether that step is correct and necessary or whether it should be modifed (and how) or eliminated completely. The group should reach consensus on each step. Once each of the steps has been evaluated in this manner, a new flow chart should be prepared for the group to review. A final evaluation should take place to ensure that the process will, indeed, do what it is intended and that it has in fact been made more efficient.

With this approach, processes can be quickly and easily enhanced to become more efficient and less cumbersome. While most processes can be refined in this manner, there could be a few processes that are very complex that will require more extensive analysis and measurement. But we believe that over-analyzing simple processes simply ties up people resources and provides little incremental advantage over the method described above.

Sales and Wasting Time

The way that sales people utilize their time is critical to their success. Many sales people are simply ineffective time managers. Every minute of every day is essential to a sales person. Sales managers need to stress the importance of time and help their sales people understand how wasted time translates into lost sales.

Let's look at an example to clarify our point. Suppose the average face-to-face call lasts 15 minutes. And the average travel time between accounts is 30 minutes. We'll use an 8 hour day even though we believe an 8 hour day falls far short of acceptable in the sales game. Let's assume that on this day the full 8 hours is devoted to either travel or actual sales calls. We'll further assume that the rep is at the first prospect's doorstep at the beginning of the 8 hour period. In this 8 hour day, the rep would be able to make roughly 16 sales calls.

We know that sales is an imperfect art form and making 16 calls in this example is undoubtedly a stretch. We know that the rep will need to return phone calls and follow up on and resolve problems that might occur. These will consume some of the day which will further reduce the actual number of calls that get made. So let's say that on a good day the rep can make 10 calls.
Now let's complicate this scenario by introducing events or activities that tend to waste a sales person's time. Here's a list of our top ten time killers:

1. Poor routing through a territory increasing the average travel time between accounts.
2. Making a face-to-face contact to answer a question or resolve a minor customer issue when a phone call would have sufficed.
3. Doing administrative (non-selling) tasks such as paperwork during prime selling time.
4. Calling on non-decison makers.
5. Calling on prospects who will never buy anything or simply can't afford to buy from you.
6. Making too many calls to the same account or prospect.
7. Finding every reason possible not to make sales calls by doing make-work activities that yield no real return.
8. Leaving at the start of normal business hours from home or the office to drive to the first call and/or driving home or back to the office before putting in a full day in the field.
9. Preparing proposals during prime selling time.
10. Spending too much time with any given customer or prospect.

If a sales person engages in any or all of these activities, the number of calls that can be made is further reduced. In extreme cases, the sales person is doing more of these activities than actual selling activities. In many cases, a sales person is often not even aware they are doing one or more of these things and are chewing up significant chunks of time in non-selling activities.

The sales manager must act as a role model and mentor to help the sales person more effectively manage his/her time. Sales people need to understand clearly that time really is money and that selling is, in most cases, a matter of relationship development and maximizing the number of quality contacts made. Without enough time devoted to actual sales activities, it is difficult to achieve either.

Keep It Simple

For some unknown reason, business people continually try to make things more complicated and complex than they need to. When it comes right down to it, business is not all that complicated. A business exists to make a profit. To do so, a company must offer a product or service that has appeal within a market or set of markets, it must hire good people, it must market its product or service effectively, it must control expenses and it must provide high levels of customer service.

But something happens in many businesses along the path to success (or failure). The people responsible for running the business begin to make their lives and others' lives difficult by adding levels of complexity that often don't need to exist. Most of this is a result of poor planning and implementation and a lack of adequate management skills.

In every facet of a business, it is wise to constantly think in terms of how things can be kept simple. Processes should be as simple as possible. When processes become unduly complex, communication breaks down, mistakes occur and customer service suffers. Communication should be kept very simple as well. The more words that are used in communicating, the greater the chance of miscommunicating. It is important to provide enough details to clearly communicate what it is you want to get across, but do so in a concise, straightforward manner.

When dealing with problems whether they are operational in nature or related to employees, avoid the tendency to make more out of the problem than is really there. In other words, stay away from making things appear worse than they are. Taking a "sky is falling" approach to problems simply encourages havoc and chaos that often clouds the ability to resolve the problem. It is important to stay calm, think rationally and positively and to remain optimistic. Work through the issues methodically and work toward a solution. Effective managers are adept at keeping their emotions in check and not allowing negativity to creep into their thinking.

Using common sense in resolving business issues is critical. Most business issues and challenges can be dealt with by using simple common sense and keeping things in the proper perspective. Managers who possess a high level of common sense tend to be more successful because they apply sound reasoning and logic to getting things done. Those who try to apply a lot of theory to getting things done often find it difficult to move beyond the theory and into practice. In other words they tend to get caught up in deriving complex models for getting things done when a relatively simple approach would suffice.

We often refer to blocking and tackling when it comes to business success. Blocking and tackling represents the fundamental business practices that must be in place to be successful. We also break businesses down into four fundamentally simple, but broad categories:
1) people
2) strategy
3) processes
4) culture

We believe that managers must deal with these four variables effectively to create a successful business and create value in the business. This approach also allows businesses to focus on four relatively straightforward areas and encourages simplicity in planning and management. Knowing that these four variables must be affected to be successful is a big first step in getting to a simple, logical approach to managing a business. Why? Because it brings focus to what needs to be dealt with.

Sure there are a number of sub-variables within each of these broader categories, but most businesses fail to compartmentalize their businesses in a way that makes sense. Management should look at these four variables and begin by asking these simple questions:
1) do we have the right people in the right jobs?
2) do we have the right strategies defined?
3) are our processes as simple and efficient as possible?
4) do we have a high morale, customer-driven culture?

In most organizations, the answer will be "no" to one or more of these questions if management is willing to be honest and objective in assessing the situation. A "no" answer is a call to action. A simple, but well defined plan of attack needs to be assembled to deal with deficiencies that might exist.

Maintaining simplicity in business whenever possible is important. Is your approach logical and based on common sense? Are your daily processes and procedures simple and efficient? If not, take a look at how you might simplify your business and, therefore, your life.

Think Strategically

Getting employees to think strategically rather than operationally can be difficult. Here are some simple tips on learning to think more strategically:

1.Remember that the foundation for a sound strategic plan is goals. They provide direction and focus and well as a basis for finding alternative ways of achieving them. Never lose sight of your goals.
2. Forget about "the way it's always been done"! Think about how things could be and/or should be. Get outside your comfort zone!
3. Practice creative thinking. Tell yourself that no idea is too crazy. Generate as many ideas as possible. As an example, take one of your products or services and list all of the possible ways it could be marketed remembering that anything goes. Force yourself to be creative and think "outside the box".
4. Analyze and process data and information in an unbiased manner. Good long-term strategies are developed around good information and sound logical reasoning. Take the time to gather good data/information, but don't get caught up in over-analyzing things!
5. Look outside the operating environment. Learn to look at customers and markets available to you. Get externally focused! Understand your markets.
6. Think in strategic terms rather than task-oriented terms. For example, suppose a goal is to grow revenues at an annual rate of 9%. This sets off all kinds of task-oriented thinking; staff needs, promotional materials, space planning, etc. Think more in terms of alternative strategies for growing the business, new ways to penetrate existing markets with a new product for example.
7. Become a thinker! Take time to sit back and clear your mind of details and just think. Think less about details and more about your goals and how to achieve them. Step back and think big picture on a regular basis. Find quiet time to do it. Thought can be the most productive form of work.
8. Generate as many ideas as possible. Quantity will often breed quality. Also, some ideas can come together to form very effective strategies.

Strive To Hire The Best

Your people are the key to your success (or failure). Why anyone hurries the hiring process is mind-boggling to say the least. Even in a tight labor market businesses want to hire the best of what's available.

Here are some tips for hiring good people:

-Be patient. Don't hurry the hiring process. We believe you are better off with a vacant position than having a marginal employee filling it.
-Develop a complete and accurate position description that details all aspects of the position.
-Develop what you feel is an ideal profile of the person that will fill the position.
-Utilize an employee assessment instrument in the hiring process. These tools are essential to uncovering a person's interests, ability and personality. The best instruments provide a profile of the individual against the ideal profile for the job.
-Spend a little extra time and money attracting as many quality candidates as possible. You will want to be able to select from as many good candidates as possible.
-Be prepared! Develop interview questions prior to any interviews. Focus on the desired traits and profile when developing interview questions. Design the questions to draw out traits and tendencies. Get at the past behavior of the candidate in the interview process. Have candidates explain situations they have dealt with in the past that are relevant to the job you are hiring for. -Put the candidates through a series of what if questions. These are situational in nature and force the candidate to think about what he/she would do in each situation.
-Once you have boiled the candidate field down to just a few people, bring the finalists back for a second round of interviews.
-Have several people interview the candidates. This allows for different perspectives and accounts for various biases.
-Examine your wage/salary and benefits structure. Are you at least competitive with the market? The best people will be attracted to the highest paying positions in most cases.
-Think long-term. Ask yourself if hiring the candidate is in the best interest of the organization. Remember that hiring marginal employees has a devastating short and long-term impact on a business.

Value Your Reputation

The reputation of your business should be treated like gold. That is if it's worth anything to begin with. Building a reputation based on honesty, standing by the product or service you sell and placing significant emphasis on having satsfied customers will pay dividends over the long-term.
How you deal with vendors, employees and customers all factor in to the reputation you develop. And all three of these constituent groups are critical to the success of any business. Too many companies don't understand the importance of developing and maintaining a solid reputation as a company that can be trusted, relied upon and that treats people fairly. The basic philosophy and culture of the organization will fuel the perceptions of employees, customers and vendors as well as the public at large.

We believe strongly that organizations have to manage their reputations. They do so from the top. Owners and top management must buy into a philosophy that has at its center honesty, fairness, responsiveness and consistency in how the organization deals with internal and external constituent groups.

Top management should strive to communicate clearly to all employees that they expect them to treat each other, vendors, customers and the public they come in contact with while representing the company in a manner that is consistent with the philosophy described above. When employees deviate from that philosophy, it is important to clarify for them those expectations and reinforce the fact that behaving in a manner inconsistent with the organization's philosophies is not an option. For employees who just can't buy into those philosophies, they will be better off finding an organization that better fits their own values and perspectives.

Since each employee has the opportunity to impact the reputation of the organization, all should receive appropriate training in dealing with people in routine and in potential conflict situations. When the reputation of an organization becomes too tarnished, it is either impossible or it takes a long period of time to shift negative perceptions that have been created.

The way an organization conducts business is critical to its long-term success. People want to do business with companies they feel good about. If there is any doubt in their minds, they are less likely to take a chance. Take time to assess what kind of reputation your organization has. Ask employees, customers, vendors and the general public what they think of your company. Use that input to improve upon your approach to doing business.

Avoid Hair Trigger Hiring

When there are problems in a particular area of your business, make every attempt to determine the causes of the problem before hiring additional full-time permanent employees to deal with the problem. In other words, don't automatically assume that the problem is too few people. For example, suppose a distribution company is constantly dealing with backlogs and delays in shipments. The first reaction is probably to hire more people to pick and bundle orders. But is the problem one of too few people or is it a process problem? Before hiring the additional order pickers, it is much more prudent to closely examine the process and make it as efficient and accurate as possible. And ask yourself if there are marginally performing employees currently involved in the process that need to be dealt with? To hire more people without fully understanding where the problems lie will simply reduce your bottom line. But a natural reaction when process problems or backlogs occur is to hire more people. Try to avoid hiring additional people right away unless you are certain that the process in question is as efficient as possible and that the employees involved in the process are performing up to expectations. Never hire another employee to compensate for marginal employees. Deal with the marginal employees and either expect them to elevate their productivity or terminate them and hire high performers. Don't hesitate to hire additional employees when necessary, but first ask yourself if it truly is necessary.

Don't Short Change Employees

Your employees are your most important asset. While the primary mission of any business is to make money, we don't recommend doing it at the expense of employees. In other words, holding employee wages down to boost short-term profits is usually a big mistake. We emphasize looking at the long-term. Paying employees at levels that are not competitive is not a good long-term strategy for enhancing profits. It is critical that wage and salary structures be sufficient to attract and retain top people. Without excellent employees, the likelihood of success is not very high. Ultimately the less competitive your wages are the worse your employees will be, meaning you get what you pay for. Poor wages are going to cause you to lose the good employees you already have and make it difficult to find more good employees.

Go Green With Online Performance Management System

Going green is a big initiative in today's business world. ReviewSNAP Performance Management System can lead you down the right path of going paperless. According to ManageSmarter The U.S. alone uses enough office paper each year to build a 10-foot-high wall that's 6,815 miles long. That's more than the distance from New York to Tokyo. The average U.S. worker prints over 10,000 pages of office paper a year which equates to over 1 tree per employee a year. Production of 1 ton of copy paper uses the same amount of energy an average household uses in 10 months (11,134 kWh ). And making a single sheet of copy paper can use more than 13 ounces of water, which is more than a typical soda can.

ReviewSNAP won't completely alleviate using paper, but it will point you in the right direction and help save trees, water and energy.

Avoid Duel Reporting Relationships

Put yourself in the shoes of your employees. Would you want to be subjected to having two or more bosses? Some organizations do, in fact, have an ill-conceived organizational structure that calls for an employee to report to more than one supervisor.

Since this situation nearly always creates confusion, conflict and indecision, it is wise to avoid it completely. An employee might have responsibility across two or more functional areas. But does that mean the employee must take direction from more than one supervisor? Rarely. It is vital that employees work closely with one supervisor to set expectations and goals, take direction and receive feedback about performance. When more than one supervisor is involved, the employee is subject to the potential for far too many mixed messages.

Because management styles can vary widely, the employee is subject to differing approaches. Supervisors who are expected to manage the same employee can become frustrated, angry and possessive leading to potential conflict with the other supervisor(s).

Look for situations in your organization where there are formal or informal duel reporting relationships. Work closely with the supervisors involved to resolve the reporting relationship. Many times employees are taking direction from more than one supervisor without the formally designated supervisor being aware of it. The employee continues to take direction often out of fear or confusion about who he/she reports to.

Clearly define the organizational structure for each work unit in your business. Keep the structure as simple and easy to administer as possible. Once completed, communicate it very carefully and completely to all employees. Supervisors and employees must understand who reports to whom.

If, for some odd reason, an employee must report to more than one supervisor, it is essential that the supervisors work together closely to define each of their roles in the relationship with the employee and to break down responsibilities. This is often best accomplished with the supervisors' manager involved. Once the details are worked out, they should be communicated clearly to the employee.