Posts

Surviving the Growing Pains! – Managing Staff in a Period of Growth

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One of the common features of many of the businesses we come into contact with is that they are experiencing a period of rapid growth. They have a proven product or service, they’re doing the right thing by their customers and they’re reaping the rewards of their efforts – terrific!

But life is not always wine and roses as they say, and a number of businesses going through this phase also experience “Growing Pains”. Growing pains can develop in any area of the business – it could be that product or service quality is beginning to suffer, or it could be that your IT, accounting or communications systems are not keeping up with the increased pace. It might also be that you’re having difficulty in attracting and retaining quality staff to enable you to continue to provide the level of customer service that has contributed to the success of your business. Read more →

What are your People Management Priorities for 2016?

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The start of a new year prompts many of us to think about our goals and priorities for the year. Indeed, we’ll be working with the management teams of several of our established clients over the coming weeks to help them clarify their priorities, particularly in respect of their people management strategies.

Based on our recent work, here are a few common themes we expect to emerge (in no particular order):

1. Clarifying vision and strategy – Sure, a regular paypacket is a good “satisfier” for many, but to really optimise the efforts of your people it needs to be clear just where the team/business is heading, how you plan to get there and what role you are asking them to play in helping you get there. Ideally, formulation of vision and strategy will be a joint effort in order to encourage further “buy in”. Once you have a clear vision and strategy, be sure to review to ensure people-management practices are aligned (eg. if it’s part of the strategy to be number 1 in customer service, staff bonus/incentive plans shouldn’t be entirely about sales volume). Read more →

Here’s an I.D.E.A. – Provide Effective Feedback!

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A common challenge for many supervisors and managers when it comes to managing people is providing effective feedback. This is particularly the case where they need to give feedback to a team member who is presently not meeting expectations and/or where they have done something wrong.

Some supervisors and managers become paralysed by fear that the recipient of the feedback may not take it well – they might be upset, your current good relationship might be damaged or, even worse, they might argue against the feedback and become openly hostile toward you. Other supervisors and managers have no trouble telling people exactly what they have done wrong and what they need to do to improve, but they deliver the news in a way that causes people to react negatively, with the result that their efforts to improve the situation result in the recipient becoming angry and/or disengaged. Read more →

Is staff training worth the financial risk?

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CFO to CEO: “What happens if we invest in developing our people & then they leave?”

CEO to CFO: ‘What happens if we don’t, and they stay?”

From SMEs to MNCs and as far back as you would like to think, this conversation, in one form or another, is regularly occurring.

One of the biggest worries for business owners and managers is training and investing in quality employees and then losing them to a larger company, or worse a competitor, that might be able to offer more money, greater perks or better career opportunities.

Curiously, a business will regularly put more thought into what capital equipment to buy than whom to employ. And they will ensure there is a maintenance schedule for plant and equipment. When you look at the annual cost of a staff member, they represent significant investment…and cost. Read more →