Productivity Planner

For virtually every business, an ongoing quality improvement process is a key component to improving operations and employee morale. Businesses that make a concerted effort to continuously improve operations ultimately gain a competitive edge.

Market dynamics constantly change and clearly defined QIP (Quality Improvement Program) forces key personnel to take an objective look at business processes that are essential to keeping your company profitable.

More importantly, quality improvement is an ongoing process aimed at keeping your company ahead of the competition. This process includes continuously reviewing and improving business operations and implementing incremental changes as they develop to promote ongoing quality improvements. Incremental changes are easier to implement and measure. Incremental quality improvement efforts can include finding ways to reduce production and/or operating costs or improve time efficiency in a single business process.

Font-line employees can be a great source for incremental quality improvements. Try this: Put a suggestion box in the break room and you may be surprised with the quality improvement suggestions employees come up with.

A simple suggestion box empowers employees to make suggestions on improving the quality of their work and is perhaps one of the smartest moves business owners can make to build cohesion between managers and their subordinates.

Another aspect of process improvement is redesign. This approach is more far-reaching than incremental improvements. Oftentimes, these types of quality enhancements encompass multiple business processes and require cross-departmental cooperation to plan and implement. These types of changes must be carefully planned to implement properly and in a timely and cost-effective manner.

Businesses must be careful how the QIP is impleme [Read more →]

Tags: , , Leadership, Inspiration, Management, Organizational Culture by Chris Russell
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As I write, the tree outside my window is laden with a flock of multi-coloured rainbow lorikeets. They’re having a meeting - is it to discuss the quality of their breakfast, to show off their beautiful orange waistcoats, have a chat about the wet weekend, or because the boss lorikeet said ‘Every Monday morning we have to have a meeting’?

Do they have an agenda? Do they know why they’re there? Are they meeting for the sake of it? As I watch, a late one flies in. Is someone spending 5 minutes bringing him up to speed, or had they been waiting to start until he got there? One bossy one seems to be making most of the noise. Is she pushing her own barrow, dominating the conversation, being verbose, talking without good reason?

Does any of this sound like your workplace? A huge amount of money and time is wasted with unproductive and poorly run meetings, and yet they fill a vital role in modern communication.

Key Points for Effective Meetings:

* Do you need a meeting at all? Is there some other more efficient way to reach the decision needed; a more efficient way to pass on the information you’re there to share?

* Even if some of you need to be there, do you all need to be? Have you ever counted up the salary cost of a roomful of senior executives?

* Have an agenda, which everyone should be able to contribute to - circulated at least a few days before the meeting. Benefit - No hidden surprises, no sudden dumping of issues.

* Stick to the agenda. If other issues are thrown in, and are relevant, ask for them to be held until General Business.

* Place the most important items at the top of the agenda. Benefit - if someone has to leave early, the critical items have been discussed.

* Where possible, get closure on each item. What’s the point of having another meeting if agreement can be reached now? At the very least, [Read more →]

Tags: , , Leadership, Inspiration, Management, Organizational Culture by Chris Russell
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‘Have you got some staples?’ someone asks you, waving a dead stapler urgently. You always have supplies of everything - your reputation as the company hoarder is well known - but just where is the $99 question.

You rummage in your top drawer, embarrassed that they see the pile of junk that has sneaked in. Dead bus tickets fly out and a tatty packet of chewing gum splits apart. Two pairs of broken sunglasses, three combs and a heap of other equally fascinating jumble tap dance under your fingers. At last, with a sigh of relief you find the box of staples you just KNEW were lurking in the depths.

This doesn’t describe you? I bet it describes someone you know! Obvious as it seems, the way we set up our drawers can make a large difference to our productivity. Let’s consider how to use your office drawers to increase effectiveness.

The most common configuration has now become one or two drawers and a file drawer and it works well. If you have the space, five pullouts and one file drawer is ideal. Less or no drawers can be compensated for by alternative mobile and auxiliary storage systems but for the rest of this discussion we’ll assume you have at least the basic layout. (Some unfortunate souls have no drawers at all!).

Put your basic office tools such as paper clips, stapler, paper-punch, ruler, spare staples, rubber bands, eraser and pencil sharpener in the top drawer. Two reasons. They’re less likely to walk(!) and having such items on top of your desk (as many do) crowds your working space and makes you feel cluttered. It takes a fraction of a second to open a drawer (if it’s tidy) and reach for the equipment you need. The spin-off is a lovely feeling of space. I know - I used to have so much gear around the edges of my desk it left only a tiny area in which to work. I constantly wondered why my elbows were always knocking thi [Read more →]

Tags: , , Leadership, Inspiration, Management, Organizational Culture by Chris Russell
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