 I moved from working in my business to working on my business!
Jim White, Founder Savor Dallas http://www.savordallas.com |
 I found a community of business leaders who make being in business a lot more fun and less lonely.
Jeannine Sandstrom, CEO CoachWorks International, Inc. http://www.coachworks.com |
 I now have a place to be open about my business success and future challenges.
Debbie Mrazek, CEO The Sales Company Author The Field Guide to Sales http://www.the-sales-company.com |
Posts Tagged ‘player’
Systems Software, Inc, the world experts in the field of batch and crude pipeline scheduling announced today that after 13 years as the sole provider of pipeline scheduling to a major us oil company they have decided to enter the open market and expand their new product reach.
According to founder Keith Ferguson, “After an extensive evaluation, we decide that it is in our best interest to move our business forward and allow other major players in the oil industry to enjoy the benefits that have been almost exclusive to our client for well over a decade. Our newest version of SSI was developed in conjunction with real pipeline schedulers from around the world to fulfill all their requirements for scheduling a pipeline.”
Speculation from several industry insiders is that the software platform developed by SSIs founder and expert Keith Ferguson will not last on the open market long. Rumors of a buyout have been circulating for several months about suitors for the 29 year old company. According to users of the system there are no other platforms that work the way SSIs does and the implementation time is unheard of in the industry, a matter of weeks. There is only one other player in this field and they can’t even come close to the turnaround time one pipeline manager was quoted as saying.
According to SSI they have already received test pipelines from 3 large players in the oil industry and have been able to provide working systems that can be tested on site with the clients data. When asked about rumors of a partnership with another player in the energy market, SSI responded that they were unable to talk about any partnerships because of non-disclosure agreements. They did add however that their new product is written where any frontend or backend can be used not just the ones developed by SSI.
About SSI Scheduling
Systems Software Inc, is the world leader in pipeline scheduling. SSI has provided software support to the oil and gas industry in the SCADA systems and pipeline scheduling areas for more than 29 years. SSI helps clients operate their pipelines efficiently and profitably. Our professionals are experts in the areas of information technology, advanced complex problem solving and mathematics. http://www.ssischeduling.com
Measuring employee performance can be a tricky business. While there are many schools of thought regarding how to conduct the performance review, most everyone agrees that a review must be conducted regularly, and that some type of measurement must be built into the system. If you don’t have the measurement aspect in place, how do you know what to assess?
Take Jane, for example. She has worked for your company for five years and is considered a loyal, good employee who always gets her work done on time. However, upon closer examination, you see that her performance reviews or employee appraisals are based only on surface details. Although she asks for constant feedback, the only response she gets is, “You’re doing fine,” or “Thanks very much.”
Employees who expect and want to succeed in a crowded business marketplace want much more than simple feedback. Naturally, they want to know how they’re doing in their jobs in a general sense – “qualitative” measurement – but also want to validate how they contribute to the company’s bottom line – “quantitative” measurement.
The qualitative part is easy. Does the employee show up on time? Does he or she do what’s expected of them? Do they have great ideas? Do they go above and beyond the scope of their job?
Quantitative measurement or measurement by numbers is much more difficult, but is most commonly accomplished by measuring performance to the company’s goals or initiatives. For example, in a retail setting, factors like total sales, number of satisfied customers, number of retained customers and other areas are measured. Most often, each industry has certain performance measures, which impact a company’s bottom line. Each offers many opportunities to measure – and increase – performance. Each company has different factors, tasks or activities with regard to what is measured, so there is no book to follow in order to create these measures. Some industries that respond well to performance measures, include health care, auto dealerships, retail and manufacturing, just to name a few.
The greater key to quantitative measurement lies in how you do it. Think about it: can you get excited by being held accountable to find five new prospects in any one month?
Creativity is the answer, and performance measurement should be fun. Here are a few examples in which “numbers” were mixed with “creativity.”
March Madness
Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Mich., incorporated a sport’s theme into the way its staff handled new student admissions. March Madness is the familiar term for the NCAA Basketball Tournament in which sets of college teams compete for the national title. The theme not only emphasized the college’s passion for the game; it also described the fervor of activity each spring when prospective students inundate the school with applications for admission – hence the term, “madness.”
Based on the theme, the performance measurement culture incorporated feedback into the office’s daily activities – with huge success. The project began in the office mailroom where weekly performance feedback was having little, if any, impact on performance. To communicate accomplishments, the staff was content with posting a small, black-and-white line graph that detailed the staff’s performance. This provided group feedback and was updated weekly. Employees and supervisors paid no attention to the graph, and performance failed to improve.
Creativity was born! Based on the March Madness theme, the feedback graph was enlarged to a poster-sized, color chart with balls and hoops as symbols in place of bullets and plotlines. Think of USA Today’s graphs and charts as examples. Just this simple, small change resulted in increased interest in feedback and performance, additional ideas for process improvements, added social recognition and reinforcement, and improved performance.
Absenteeism
Although it might be considered a qualitative measurement, absenteeism in business is a very real, valid concern. Not only are employees evaluated by the number of days missed, but absenteeism contributes to loss profits. According to NovantHealth, 15 percent of the work force causes 90 percent of absenteeism. Emotional factors account for 61 percent of time lost, and the typical employee is absent eight days per year. Absenteeism costs employers 1.75 percent of an absent employee’s wages, and companies spend 5.6 percent of their payroll on absenteeism.
With statistics like these, you should be concerned, but what can you do to motivate employees and prevent absenteeism? Be creative!
A large hardware company introduced a lottery to reduce absenteeism. Only employees with no absenteeism for one month could participate. In every department, participants could win prices, such as a television, a bicycle and other gifts. Although some may consider this an isolated example, the results speak for themselves: there was a 75 percent reduction in absenteeism and a 62 percent reduction in costs.
Another company tried to find the answer through a game of non-gambling poker. Every day, employees who were at work drew one card, and those who worked the entire week drew five cards on Friday. The player with the best hand won $20. Due to this game, absenteeism lowered to 18.2 percent, and even when the game was played less frequently, absenteeism remained lower than previous numbers.
Applying These Ideas to Your Company
Industry examples illustrate creativity, but what can you do in your own company to make performance measurement fun?
•Begin by creating an employee committee to brainstorm ideas and submit three to five well-thought-out examples of games, contests or strategies. Just the idea of asking for employee participation is a positive step in itself, and once the ideas start flowing, they never stop. Even if your company is small, you still can ask two employees to form a team and come up with ideas.
•Take baby steps. The old adage, “Walk before you run” is valid. Begin these kinds of measurement programs on a small scale without spending too much time in the planning and implementation stages. If something takes up too much time and you’ve lost productivity due to trying to be more creative than you need to be, the effort is a non-issue.
•Think Outside the Norm. Just because you have a professional image doesn’t mean you can’t do something out of the ordinary. Again, the object is to be as creative as possible.
•Above all, assess your creativity and performance measurement techniques on a regular basis, or measure the measurement. Without some kind of evaluation built into the activity, you won’t know whether you succeeded and can’t figure out how improve for the future.
One day I worked with a top level executive. It was really interesting how the conversation weaved between how his team wasn’t getting results and how he was doing the lion’s share of the work (and marketing). This guy was a rainmaker extraordinaire. The other executives on his team were not.
What we discussed during our meeting was his strengths* and how those revealed themselves. He had an intense desire to serve others and to be excellent in all of his dealings. His marketing was effortless. He simply did what he loved and the clients followed. On the other hand, his counterparts struggled with their marketing and business development efforts. They didn’t act like themselves. They second-guessed their decisions.
During this conversation, the executive lamented, “Why can’t they just ‘get it?’”
That’s when I shared with him what I saw. What I saw was that one of the other executives just lost his confidence after a series of bad deals. His book of business was down, and he was down, too. Here was a superstar who was getting mediocre results. The effect was that he started acting mediocre. To me, this one was the easiest fix.
Another executive was not good at business development. His strengths were geared more toward organization and managing details. He was a precision operator as a manager and a technician; however, when it came to going out of the office, it was really a bit of a disaster for all involved.
I tactfully shared what I saw in the rainmaker. I shared with him that I saw that he was an amazing business developer and client service advocate. However, internally, he was as much of a disaster as the guy who was a great manager and technician was at business development.
Our conversation veered toward the question, “What would happen if you continued to grow business like you do and this other executive manages the internal side for you? How would that affect your business?”
His response was immediate – “That would almost be the best of both worlds – I get to do what I do best and so does he.” And then came the concern about the mechanics of making that happen – compensation models would have to be changed, etc.
The point here is this. In an organization, every player works at business development. Some will take on the lion’s share of the work because it is simply the best thing for them. They thrive on it, they are energized by it. Others will contribute to helping those rainmakers go out and make rain. Those activities will energize them, and contribute to the overall good of the company. And yet all can contribute in their own unique way to the bottom line. Every person can market. The key to success is discovering what your unique style is.
When it comes to marketing, go with what works for you. Don’t try to do activities that are not reflective of who you are. If you are an introvert, and love bridge, then join a bridge club and share with others just what you do. Go with the flow so to speak. Don’t force yourself into a business situation where you would rather watch paint peel – enjoy who you are and go where others will see your brilliance.
If you are an active type of person, take it off-road and do something different. Get out of the marketing box and refuel for profits.
Next week I’ll share one of the most profitable marketing ideas I’ve ever encountered and I’ll share exactly how you can do it, too!
*This conversation took place before I ever knew about the Clifton StrengthsFinder or CoreClarity – I’ve had an insatiable desire to match up top performers to their best jobs for years. Therefore, in this example, I didn’t use the proper terminology of ‘talent’ vs. ‘strength’ although in this gentleman’s case his talents were definitely strengths.