Day Debt

There is more involved in making money than just the income - you need to be bringing in money as effectively as possible given your outgoings. One of the simpler ways to do this involves performance management software.

Business optimization requires an understanding of the abilities and weaknesses of its staff; in what areas do they do their best work? How can your system adjust to emphasize their strengths and suppress their weaknesses? This is the burning question. The difficulty lies in finding and collating this knowledge. Looking at one facet of this - staff evaluation - defining their progress and keeping track of it is a significant task. The first step is to bring employee appraisal systems into play. Once this is done you can track the work of each employee. Assessing all of this information comes next. After all, before it’s ready to use determining goals and checking future progress it’s important to know what the pure information actually means. Employing performance management software you know that this analysis is taken care of and you only need to scrutinize the various metrics to find what an appropriate goals for this member of staff would be. It also renders following the member of staff’s development much simpler. With more useful information for less time invested, this can be a cost saving measure before putting these findings to use. If you want to you can instead carry out your own analysis, merely employing the software to create and keep up a record to use as a basis.

I’m sure I don’t need to say, it’s not employee performance alone that can be improved by use of performance management software. You can also use it to keep an eye on your clients & suppliers. For example, when looking at suppliers you can more easily see the weak points such as slow delivery times, bad damage records, and so forth.

As for clients and affiliates, it’s possible to determine who who is your best seller of any given product or service if there are payment issues, which one has the worst loss percentage, and the solutions to other questions. You can then tailor your ordering and stock handling to boost your income while minimizing outgoing money. This information will allow you to identify a priority demographic. With this in mind advertising and other marketing becomes more effective and less difficult to plan.

Keeping an eye on both your market and your sources is effortless with performance management software. It also makes employee performance management a breeze and much more effective as well as helping you encourage staff by setting unambiguous targets dramatically. All in all, what can be achieved with this software is astounding!

If you want more suggestions, you are advised to surf to our terrific resource for performance management training products!

It’s felt in a lot of businesses that, by giving each employee basic training in workplace safety, they now have all the skills they need to cope with a catastrophe. The truth is that, regardless your industry, staff should have more than a basic education in health & safety legislation. Equipping your staff, selecting a good supervisior and supporting frequent drills are all key factors. All teams must have an approachable supervisor to watch staff performance, but this individual must also perform an even greater role in the business. A supervisor should exhibit enthusiasm and also consider safety education great. In addition to encouraging compliance with health & safety regulations, a supervisor’s job also includes checking up on employee performance. This isn’t a simple job. The supervisor needs to have broad knowledge of both the industry best practice and manufacturing procedures as well as a very high level of understanding of the latest regulations with regard to safety, risk assessment and first aid. It simply isn’t enough to supply your employees with health & safety instruction. They need to practise risk assessment and the identification of hazards. Staff additionally need to develop a good comprehension of the necessary precautions that they’ll need to put in place and also how best to act if something goes wrong. Only when these processes become automatic are employees properly protected. Safety equipment is equally as critical to the your staff’s safety as any training. Without the appropriate supplies or alternatively should staff find out that supplies are damaged only after something has occurred, the education your employees have already completed is in vain. It’s a good idea to check often to make certain you possess all the equipment you require and also that it is working correctly. When piece of equipment does not come up to the applicable standards, get it repaired or serviced as soon as you can.

Please check out this one of a kind resource for occupational health safety suggestions.

Your workers have to receive good health and safety instruction, but in addition they also require quality equipment, regular practise drills, and a supervisor who is gifted with contagious enthusiasm. When you implement these steps you will find that health & safety legislation will be part of the workforce’s working habits not something troublesome for employees to remember constantly.

The techonology sector has always been a flourishing industry.The industry has been readily active producing faster, simpler, and more efficient solutions to many business issues. This includes simplifying the employment hiring process. Technological advances have led to the advent of a better solution for Employment Verification. This permits for safer, faster, and more effective verification. Gone are the days of placing dozens of phone calls, writing or emailing requests, and waiting to hear back from previous employers just to verify the job history of a potential employee. Verification using a trusted employment verification service takes care of all the hard work and sends you a detailed report of the findings.

Your first step should be to make the decision to utilize a more efficient system for your new hire employment verification. Once you make the decision regarding this solution and choose to accept it, sign up for an account. Log in to your account and fill out the information that you have received from the new hire. It is necessary for you to validate and preview the information to make sure that everything you need is there before submitting to the online system. After submitting the forms, the previous employers receive it instantly via fax or e-mail. They will then hopefully respond and provided the proper information needed, including but not limited to job performance records and attendance history if they so choose to. Upon completion, they will finally submit the employment verification forms to the online system for your review.

If you are a large corporation and intend to utilize this system often, your costs should start at around $5 per verification. If you are a smaller company that requires less usage of this system, you can expect to pay a little more per verification. Any way you look at it, you can see that this is a cost-effective solution in many ways. Having to make the calls yourself and do all the verification, it costs you invaluable time as well as any extraneous Employment Verification costs. Get more information online on how you can make this process easier, faster, safer, more efficient and more effective for yourself and your business.

Succeeding in the modern business environment depends on the efficient management of staff. These skills can be improved and studied. Having a intuitive skill for communicating with people and forming relationships is an advantage, but you can do some things that will make this procedure easy. Build relationships: Begin by using the names of the employees. Speak to staff; get eye contact as you are speaking. Develop a respectful attitude, and do pay attention to the other person’s opinion, even if you don’t agree or have another opinion. Paying attention to what staff have to offer is one of the best people management skills you can have. Be sure to show an interest in what everyone can give to the team.

Keep your promises: Keeping your word is key. If your word is not kept, it will damage trust, and people will not offer you their best without trust. Everytime you make a statement or make a promise about something, do be sure that you can keep your promises or don’t bother giving your word at all. To be frank, when you can’t be counted on, your employees will not be there when they are most needed. Welcome feedback: It’s a two way street. People management skills mean being receptive to all feedback. If you can demonstrate approachability and openness, you prove that you appreciate your co-worker’s feedback, your opinions will be respected in return. Honest discussion in addition promotes innovative ideas, ways of accomplishing the goals of the team, and develops the team. By giving the employees an input, each member of staff invests in the outcome of the project.

Communication is fundamental: Your people management skills boil down to one thing — good communication. Be accessible, practice listening techniques, encourage all sorts of feedback, and allow all your staff to express their views. Staff should be encouraged to speak to one another as well as with you. The growth of a business depends a great deal on the open exchange of ideas, and if the team members communicate efficiently, it is simple to identify problems swiftly, and corrective measures can be applied before matters get out of hand.

Some time and effort will be needed, nevertheless the rewards are worthwhile. By establishing the bonds of a good team and listening to what your team has to offer, a successful business can be achieved.

If you have decided to take the plunge into running your own business your will be faced with several options. You can take on a franchise or set up your own business from scratch. This ultimately depends on what you want to put in and what you expect out.

Pick up a business magazine and your will find lots of franchises for sale.Franchises are everywhere.When you purchase a franchise you are basically getting a business in a box. When you buy into a franchise, many aspects of the business including marketing are taken care of off. There are many different franchises available. Some will give you the business name, equipment and everything you need for start up, others only give you the basics and you still have to buy or lease a location, purchase equipment and the inventory you will need.

The negatives of buying a franchise however are that you are not free to change much of your business model, and you must pay for the privilege up front. Visit the Key Mergers website for more information or if you would like to f you would like to buy a business or for details of available franchises.

Building your very own company from the bottom up however means that you can grow the business organically over time, you can limit your initial outlay and you can be as creative with the direction of your business as you like. However, your model may not be tried and tested and you will likely have to develop your own support network from the ground up along with your business.

the reality is, the decision whether to buy a franchise or go it alone are dependent on what your want to get out of the enterprise. There is a trade-off between creativity, fleximility, risk and reward.

“The longer I live, the more I am certain that the great difference between the feeble and the powerful, between the great and the insignificant is energy-invincible determination a purpose once fixed, and then death or victory. This quality will do anything that can be done in this world.” Sir Thomas Buxton

During the 1980s, the Milliken textile company dramatically improved its customer service, product quality, and financial performance through an intense quality improvement effort. They eventually won a national quality award in recognition of their success. To promote the improvement process, office and factory walls were plastered with quality slogans and everyone wore gold lapel pins with the word “Quality.” Very early one morning, at the height of their drive for higher quality, CEO Roger Milliken arrived ready to address a team meeting in one of the manufacturing plants coming off the night shift. The manager who met him asked, “Where’s your quality pin?” Roger looked down at his lapel, smacked his forehead, and said, “Oh my God! I must have left it on my pajamas.”

That’s either very fast thinking or a great example of commitment to the quality improvement cause! A burning commitment to the cause is a clear hallmark of passionate and highly effective leaders. There’s no apathy. There’s no doubt about where the leader stands and where he or she is going. As the growing research on Emotional Intelligence clearly shows, a strong point of view and a burning desire to see things through is worth dozens of IQ points.

“Change management” programs of various stripes and names are very fashionable. Research continuously shows over half of them fail. Like diets and New Year’s resolutions, it’s easy to excitedly declare a bold new world and launch into a major change effort. But the real test of leadership comes 12, 18, or 24 months later. Rare is the individual, team, or organization still as intensely committed to the cause at that point as they were in the beginning. Where there’s a successful, long-term change or improvement effort underway you’ll always find highly committed leaders. Many people pay lip service to change. Some can even get quite passionate about the need for improvement. But only a handful make the leap from lip service to lifestyle change. There are canyon-sized gaps from saying to doing to being. The depth of our passion and commitment determines the intensity of our involvement.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s poem captures the spirit of passionate commitment found in highly effective leaders:

Will

There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,

Can circumvent or hinder or control

The firm resolve of a determined soul.

Gifts count for nothing; will alone is great;

All things give way before it, soon or late.

What obstacle can stay the mighty force

Of the sea-seeking river in its course,

Or cause the ascending orb of day to wait?

Each well-born must win what it deserves.

Let the fool prate of luck. The fortunate

Is he whose earnest purpose never swerves,

Whose slightest action or inaction serves

The one great aim. Why, even Death stands still,

And waits an hour sometimes for such a will.

Excerpted from Jim’s fourth bestseller, Growing the Distance: Timeless Principles for Personal, Career, and Family Success. View the book’s unique format and content, Introduction and Chapter One, and feedback showing why nearly 100,000 copies are now in print at http://www.growingthedistance.com. Jim’s new companion book to Growing the Distance is The Leader’s Digest: Timeless Principles for Team and Organization Success. Jim Clemmer is an internationally acclaimed keynote speaker, workshop/retreat leader, and management team developer on leadership, change, customer focus, culture, teams, and personal growth. His web site is http://www.clemmer.net/articles.

Gerald R. Ford said “If I went back to college again, I’d concentrate on two areas: learning to write and learning to speak before an audience. Nothing in life is more important than the ability to communicate effectively.”

It’s the number one skill that’s guaranteed to position you head and shoulders above the competition, yet it’s frequently overlooked, according to female speaker, Patricia Fripp.

My own take on having the ability to speak well in public is that it’s probably the single most powerful thing you can learn to do that gives you the ammunition to say “If I can do that, I can do anything”.

If you’ve ever marvelled at the abilities of a great presenter, the clever use of words to draw pictures, the confidence and charisma that exudes from the platform and the awe in which they are held, you’ll agree with the above statements.

So why is it that when it comes to attending training courses, presentation skills are not the automatic first port of call? Could it be to do with that oft quoted (probably misquoted) statistic that speaking in public is feared more than death? Let’s not go into an examination of quite how ridiculous that would be if it were true. After all, how many of you would really swap places with the guy in the coffin if you were asked to speak at a funeral?

There’s no doubt that public presenting can get the old palms sweating, but given the benefits you’ll get when you know you can do it well, it really shouldn’t stop you. Let’s examine the causes of nerves so you lay your fears to rest and get this most important of abilities added to your arsenal of talents, shall we?

First, examine why you’re nervous. There’s always a reason for nerves so examine what the reasons are so you can deal with the cause and go a long way to eliminating the symptom. Note that I say “go a long way to eliminating”, the chances are that you’ll always feel some nervousness which is when you need to remember that nerves are your friends because they keep your senses sharp & show that you want to do well.

Even seasoned performers suffer from stage fright, some had it so bad they could barely perform. Fortunately, the thought is usually worse than the task. Once you get started, you’ll often find that your nervousness will disappear. I liken it to knowing that you’re about to tackle a drive round London’s Hyde Park Corner or Paris’s Arc de Triomphe in rush hour. Thinking about it really freaks you out but when you’re in the middle of it, you’re too busy concentrating on not hitting anyone that it’s only afterwards you get to think “Wow, I made it in one piece.”

Some of the most common reasons I’ve found for people suffering from nerves are these:

- Worry about forgetting what you’re going to say

- Worry that the audience will think you’re a fraud

- Worry about saying the wrong thing and offending somebody

- Worry that someone will ask a question to which you don’t know the answer

- Worry that you’ll get a dry mouth or get tongue tied

- Worry that you’ll finish too soon or run long

Some of the less common ones I’ve heard were “I’m worried in case there’s a fire alarm halfway through my talk” and “I’m worried that the hem on my trousers will unravel in front of everyone whilst I’m speaking.”

I could dismiss all these are “silly” or “invalid” and tell you that none of them will ever happen, but the fact is that they often will. (Yes, even the trouser hem thing’s happened to me!). Looking down the list, you can see that there’s a lot you can do to avoid these situations occurring: being well prepared, stating your qualifications in your introduction, knowing your subject matter inside and out, timing yourself several times during rehearsals, and so on (sorry, I don’t have a magic bean to disable fire bells during speeches).

But so what if any of them still come to pass? What’s the worst that can happen? Well it’s not life or death, you know. You have to learn to keep your fears in perspective. And remember, the audience wants you to succeed. Nobody enjoys a bad speech.

Do what you can to be prepared and don’t let fear of speaking stop you from gaining that most revered of all skills, the one that will impact every area of your personal and business life. Give yourself the very best opportunity of succeeding and you’ll find the rewards are massive.

Maria Davies is the UK’s most successful female sales presenter who trains others to overcome their public speaking fears and use presentation skills to increase the audience share for their product or service by around 91%. Find out more about forthcoming seminars, worldwide e-trainings or speaker bookings at http://www.laddersofsuccess.com

In the last five years, employee turnover has increased by more than 25 percent. Recent studies reveal that at any one time, one third of employees plan to resign within the next two years. Successive surveys in the UK of employee turnover show that in retailing, hotels and restaurants, call centers and other lower paid groups turnover is often in excess of 50% per annum.

Why is this happening?

Since the late 1980s when organizations began to downsize to reduce costs, employees got the message that everyone was expendable. When organizations cut back a little too much there were always other willing recruits to join. Other processes which historically reinforced the employee/employer ‘contract’, such as training and development and succession planning, were also cut back. The security of life time employment was gone and individuals learnt that ‘making their own way’ meant managing their own career first and foremost. This often meant leaving the organization to get ahead and today the most common reason people leave is to seek promotion outside the organization (53%).

What to do about it

No single retention strategy will work across a diverse organization as each group of employees will have different retention issues. For instance, clerical workers may well need to feel they are ‘being treated with respect’. Management may be ‘looking for opportunity for advancement’. Here are some guidelines:-

1. Manage entry into the organisation

A great deal of employee turnover consists of people resigning or being dismissed in the first few months of employment. Even if people stay for a year or more, they may well have decided to leave based on their first few weeks in the job. To aid retention, give prospective employees a realistic job preview at the recruitment stage. Don’t overstate the requirements of the role but give a true representation - warts and all. During the first few critical weeks make line managers accountable for ensuring new joiners are taken through a well planned induction process.

2. Develop potential

It may be stating the obvious but high potential employees need opportunities to develop and stretch. New job assignments, cross functional moves, profit and loss responsibility, and a chance to lead a new business activity all send out the message that we value your input and are prepared to invest in your future. Organizations which drive their employees into the ground to deliver short term targets risk damage long term.

Maximise the impact of training by making sure it is relevant to the job otherwise employees will feel that they are wasting their time. Use training to expand experience and support forward promotion.

3. Communicate

This takes two forms. Research undertaken by the Hay Group shows that a major ‘dissatisfier’ which contributes to employee turnover is a lack of clarity about company direction and strategy. Therefore, to increase retention, make sure all managers in the business are communicating the company mission, vision and strategy at every possible opportunity.

Secondly, communication is two way. Ensure wherever possible that employees have a ‘voice’ to provide feedback back to the organization via discussion forums, attitude surveys and grievance systems. Where there is no opportunity to voice dissatisfaction, resigning feels like the only option.

4. Reward good management

Reward managers whose record at retaining people is good by including the measure in performance appraisals. Use competencies or other behavioral measures to provide feedback to managers who demonstrate good listening skills, excellent coaching and who give effective feedback. Train line managers in these skills before appointing or promoting them in to leadership roles

5. Tackle underperformance

Studies have shown that many people leave their jobs because they are unhappy with their boss. Individuals respect organizations that are prepared to tackle underperformance head on. Weed out marginal performers in the management ranks.

Finally, defend your organization against penetration by headhunters and others seeking to poach your staff. Keep internal email addresses confidential, train secretaries to spot calls from agencies and avoid giving them any useful information, refuse to do business with agencies who have poached your staff and enter into pacts with other employers not to poach one another’s’ staff.

Pam Kennett is a business consultant with more than 20 years experience working with organisations to help them understand the talent of their staff through the implementation of competency models. She has an MBA from City University Business School (London), is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and is a registered member of the British Psychological Society.

She is the founder and Director of Chiswick Consulting Limited and can be contacted at +44 208747 1886 or http://www.chiswickconsulting.com

Pam welcomes any feedback on this or any of her other articles. Please contact her at pam@chiswickconsulting.com.

It’s 6:00 a.m. I’m awake. I’m pumped! I’m ready to go. I have a TO DO list that will keep me busy all day. My goal is to accomplish all of the things on my list before I go to bed tonight.

I turn on the computer.

Wow! I have 67 new emails. Well, I simply HAVE to check my emails. A lot them are unsolicited, but hey, I don’t want to miss a great deal that one of them may be offering.

I start to read my emails.

RRRRRiinnnngg!! There goes the phone.

“Hello?
Hey, Girl, what’s up?
He did what??? Child, let me tell you
what Eli did in class yesterday. The
teacher said he…..”

Half an hour later…

Back to reading emails. Of course there are some that I have to answer back. Then there is Lisa’s emails I MUST read because she always send about 10 jokes and I know at least 8 of
them will be very funny.

HAHAHAHAHA. That was very funny. I must forward that one on to my list of friends. I’m sure they’d get a kick out
of it.

RRRRRRRRRiiinnnnggg!

“Hello!
Hey, Mom. What’s up?
What? You don’t say?
Hey, I warned you about her.”

45 minutes later you look at the clock and…

“Oh My Goodness! Where Has the Time Gone?”

It’s now lunchtime and I haven’t accomplished anything.

That was me. Everyday I would wake up ready to conquer the world. By lunchtime I had wasted so much time accomplishing nothing that I would give up and figure I’d start it all again
tomorrow. But tomorrow would pretty much be a repeat of the day before.

That was until I taught myself how to manage my time.

You must focus and pay attention to your time, otherwise it has a way of slipping away without being noticed.

If you are in any way like I am, a person who can get caught up in spending hours reading emails. And many other hours idling chit-chatting on the phone with friends and family. You must make a conscious effort to eliminate or at least cut down on doing anything that takes you away from your purpose.

Make a plan for each day.

Schedule a time for everything that is important to you.

Schedule time to check your emails. I find that it is helpful for me to check my emails during lunch. Since I am on a break, so to speak, reading my emails will not distract me or take
away time from more important things.

Limit the amount of time you spend on the phone idling talking with friends and family. I’m in no way suggesting that you do not talk with them but talk with them “after hours.” Once you
have completed your goals for the day, then rewind by laughing and talking with friends and family.

A spouse and kids can also take you off of your course. If you have small children who are home, they can often take you off track. Make sure that the time you schedule to accomplish your
goals, you have someone else take care of your children. OR, help them to understand that during this time, you cannot be disturbed. It is important that you make sure you schedule time
to take care of their needs as well.

Make a conscious effort not to let time slip away from you. For if you don’t, you will wake up one morning, 85 years old, and wonder where the time went.

Dawn Fields is a motivational speaker, author, and spiritual life coach. She teaches how to discover and live your life’s purpose. Visit the web site at http://www.dawnfields.com. Be sure to tune in on Thursdays @ 9 p.m. EST for her radio show, Your Life’s Purpose Interactive Internet Radio Show at http://www.dawnfields.com/radioshow.htm. Be sure to sign up for the motivational and inspirational newsletter, Your Life’s Purpose by sending a blank email to dawn@dawnfields.com
with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line.

Each year people make New Year’s resolutions as a declaration of commitment to themselves to make changes in their lives. Have you wondered how effective resolutions are? Do you achieve your New Year’s resolutions? If you achieve your New Year’s resolutions you are in the minority. Surveys suggest that less than one percent of New Year’s resolutions are achieved. It is merely a ritual people have followed for decades. The question is, “Do you want to make changes in your life?” Making a resolution to accomplish something without a plan to achieve it is like putting gasoline into a car that doesn’t have an engine.

Developing a Plan to Achieve a Goal is surprisingly simple. There are many plans one can use to achieve a goal. The easiest goal-setting plan I use is four steps. See, Think, Plan, Act.

Step I: See: See the situation/issue/habit/behavior as it currently isDescribe it, Define it, Analyze it.

Step II: Think: Think about what you want instead of the current situation or how you want to change an issue/habit/behavior. What would the new situation/issue/habit/behavior look like? Who is involved in the situation/issue/habit/behavior? Who needs to be involved to create the change? Who will benefit from the change? How will I convince those involved to go along with the change?

Step III. Plan. What steps do I need to take to achieve the change? Research the various aspects of your plan. Check for feasibility, viability and possibility. Set a ‘by when’ date. ‘By when’ will I act on my plan?

Step IV: Act. Implement the first step of your plan. When you have acted on the first step of your plan, you have now arrived at Step I again.

Step I: See: What is the current situation/issue/habit/behavior after taking the first step? Has the action I took in Step VI created the change I wanted? Am I happy with the result? If the answer is ‘Yes,’ continue to follow the plan created in Step VI one step at a time. If the answer is No, proceed to Step II.

Step II: Think: What didn’t work? What do I need to change to get the result I want? Who do I need to talk with to help me? Continue to analyze the current situation/issuehabit/behavior until you have thoroughly analyzed the outcome of your initial action. Proceed to Step III

Step III: Plan: What changes are required? Who needs to be involved? When all aspects have been analyzed, Proceed to Step IV again.

Step IV: Act: Once you have carried out one aspect of your plan you are back to Step I.

Goal achievement is that simple. When people do not reach their goals it is not because the goal was a ‘bad’ goal it is because people do not have an effective Plan to achieve the goal or they fail to act on their plan and/or analyze each aspect of the plan as the plan unfolds to determine if the plan is achieving what they intended to achieve. ###

THOUGHTS TO PONDER
:
When you know that what you’re doing is right, nothing will be able to stop
you. When you are absolutely convinced of the true value of your efforts,
you’ll have the courage and the persistence to see them through.
To believe in what you’re doing is not just important. It is everything.

Anything less cannot possibly succeed. For any accomplishments you reach
while living a lie will ultimately be of no value.

It is not always easy to live true to your highest values, true to your
authentic self, true to what you know is right. Yet it is always your best
choice.

When you deny what you know is right in order to follow the expediency of
the moment, the benefits you gain are trivial and fleeting. Choose instead
to live each moment true to the highest values you know.

Then, who you become will be the fulfillment of who you truly are. Why would
you ever want to be anything less?

–Ralph Marston

Dorothy M. Neddermeyer, PhD, Life Coach has 25 years experience in Personal and Professional issue. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration and Psychology, a Masters Degree in Clinical Social Work and a Doctorate in Philosophy. She has consulted with Fortune 100 companies, professionals and entrepreneurs. http://www.drdorothy.net
http://www.gen-assist.com
dmneddermeyer@gen-assist.com