Archives for April 2012

Employees First – Why you Must Invest in your Employees

Who Are Employees?

Employees are the workforce of an organization and are the backbone of the system. There are different levels at which employees work. Those levels include associates, leaders, assistant managers, general managers, and vice presidents. The only difference between them all is the difference in their designation and thus their salary structures. Every employee performs a unique task that has been assigned to him/her. Managers perform the tasks that are related to management and supervisors supervise others. All employees are indispensible for an organization and thus, the management should never turn a blind eye to their rights and requirements.

Employees as an Asset

Employees are an asset of the company and without them no one can run a company. No matter how small a business is, there is always a need for employees and the ones who have all the required knowledge of the job. The managers have to realize that they need to hire those employees who have the required past experience as well.

What Is Meant By Investing In Employees?

When we use the word “investing” in employees, we are referring to training. Every company is investing a lot in its employees these days because they know why. There are numerous different types of training programs that companies can start in order to invest in their employees. The companies can employee training programs, training seminars, and even send their employees to different countries so that they can have work experience. Moreover, investing also means investing in the tests that the company makes for the employees who are applying to narrow down the selection and make it faster. The tests need to be reliable and valid so that the selection is efficient and the employees that are selected turn out to be very useful for the company.

Why Should Companies Invest In Them?

After the entire discussion, the main question that arises is that why should companies invest in them? There are numerous reasons to answer this question. The companies need to realize that their employees are their assets and if they are not in perfect form, they won’t be able to perform well and thus the companies wouldn’t prosper as well. If the companies are reluctant in investing in employees, they might be able to save some money right now, but in the long run, that would definitely affect the companies’ revenues and efficiency adversely. Investing in employees would also give the company a competitive edge over its competitors. That is because the employees that are working for a company would be more trained as compared to the ones working in other companies. For the smooth and successful running of a company, the employees need to be in their best form and that can only be achieved by investing in the training programs. Not only does that motivate the employees, but also gives them an incentive to work for that company. And once they are motivated, whatever they would do would be beneficial for the company in all the ways.

Ways to Improve Creativity at Workplace

True essence of creativity in work comes from your own perception of every employee. Every worker or employee has a unique perception of the world and the way things work. It is not about mechanism and clock-work but the reason. When every worker is allowed to work on his own terms and in his own way, you will find creativity and innovation in everyone’s assignments.

It was Bill Gates who said that his best employees were the laziest ones because they always found the easiest way to get the job done. Clearly, he was amazed by how individual behavior could beget about such efficiency, hence we learn from him that creativity in the workplace allows improvements. As a manager, you must not just talk about being creative; you must encourage your workers to be creative. If an organization doesn’t allow room for this in its culture, then it is likely to lose a competitive edge.

Creativity also gives free profits. You require no investment except support to employee and in return they are motivated and willing to offer you their best. So how does one improve creativity in the workplace?

Create A System

Include creativity and self perception into the organization’s culture. If creativity in work and assignments is what you want then there is no better way than to keep it as a core value in your company. Managers allowing employees to give feedback and inputs on company goals really help them understand the work better. Sales reps can develop much better ways to intrigue the customers since they’re the ones dealing with them on a daily basis. What better source is there then?

Education has nothing to do with creativity. It is simply a person’s different approach to the same point of view. All managers have to do is allow their workers to give their input for the assignment, these inputs could help managers point out problems they never even saw coming and the employee that saw it coming probably have a better way dealing with it than others. If all companies approached the problem in the same way, then who has the competitive edge?

Allow Space For Freedom

Instead of giving assignments with restricted guidelines and instructions, inform the employee of the ultimate goal for the assignment and ask them to do whatever it takes to get the job done. You can always supervise the worker to assure they are not going out of line or breaking any rules which hence gives you the authority. You just need to trust the employees that they will deliver. This way the employees feel motivated and recognize that they have authority and power on the work they do.

Encourage Team Work

Sometimes the most productive and creative work comes from team assignments. Most companies in the information technology industry only operate in teams. HP assigns the creation and development of each product to teams from different departments and the team is responsible for the success of the product. The result: every employee from his respective specialized field works with other specialties and brings in valuable and unique knowledge on the floor. The success depends on how well all employees work together and the floor simply brings in new and fresh ideas and perspectives from every angle.

In short, as a manager only you can bring in creativity in the work environment and foster it. The more authoritative you are, the lesser room there is for creativity because only freedom allows creative ideas to surface. Not all ideas are creative or even effective but that is the job of the manager to use his years of experience to properly polish the idea of the employee and eventually train the employee to see the bigger picture.

Top 10 Barriers to Effective Communication

When you work in a large organization, you see that you’re working with a large number of people. These people can be in different departments, different sectors of the organization and maybe even different organizations. Sometimes, you have to get a message to another person through multiple mediums, like if you want to send a message to the CEO, you have to ask your manager, who then asks the Director, who then schedules an appointment with the CEO’s secretary and then, finally you get to meet the Big Boss. Until the message is delivered, your message might get changed, distorted or even underestimated (speaking in terms of importance). The reason is because the longer the channel of communication, the longer it takes to deliver the message and the more distorted the message can be. Imagine getting a feedback from the CEO on something you probably weren’t even asking for. Furthermore, there is no privacy. Thus, these distortions are barriers to effective communication.

Communication is a complex struggle. It requires people to really understand each other and all organization rely on effective communication for efficiency. Hence we must be aware of all barriers that prove to be obstacles in our struggle for effective communication.

Physical Barriers

In the last few years, various research and scientific observations have proven physical barriers to be the biggest hindrance to effective communication in the workplace. This is the reason why hundreds of organizations have completely re-structured the way they operate. Large multinational firms, like Unilever and Procter & Gamble, no longer have managers and executives behind closed doors or in giant secluded offices. They have a more of an open floor way of operating where all the managers, employees and directors of the company operate in an open space with tables sticking side by side and people working face to face in a large wall-less room.

Cultural Diversity

Now that the world has openly embraced globalization, you find yourself working in different countries, with different races of people and sometimes very different cultural and moral backgrounds. In some countries, religion is considered the ultimate guiding force in the workplace while in others it’s personal goals. Hence, diversified culture makes it very hard to maintain a proper working environment. This is why companies tend to promote “organization culture”, a unique company environment, morals and rules that all members of the organization must follow and happily accept. Any employee who doesn’t fit into the culture eventually is out of the company either by choice or force.

Language Barriers

Just like diversified culture, you end up working with people speaking different languages. An Arab (speaking Arabic) might visit India (language: Hindi) for his company’s Raw Materials supply. Here, there will be a lot of distortion and misinterpretation even in direct contact between the two people.

Limited Or No Feedback

Sometimes people send messages and information that do not require feedback or do not allow it. Here if the information is misrepresented or misinterpreted, then there is no way to clear the doubt the receiver has about the message and hence, unable to properly comply.

Emotional Distractions

Emotions play a big role in effective communication. People can be shy, confident or just plain blunt and may not allow full or honest feedback to the receiver. Sometimes people are good listeners but because of the emotion in the tone the manager or a higher authority exerted, the employee feels he does not have the authority or confidence to reply back.

Distractions

Imagine yourself in a meeting, you are discussing important strategies for the company and there are people arguing outside the room, or maybe there is a game on and people are all gathered together. Such noise and distractions create distortions in effectively conveying messages to the receiver while the sender gets distracted.

Personal Behavior

People have their own attitudes, quirks and perceptions of things. Some people just don’t bother spending too much time in conveying messages and expect people to just understand. Such behavior can be a serious barrier in communication.

Too much information

Sometimes going into too much detail can also be a distortion. You should try to keep the messages simple, plain and to the point with hard facts. That is the best form of effective communication.

Presentation

The way a message is represented is crucial. If a “Stop” sign on the middle of a road were not on laminated material or was too small or didn’t have the word STOP, people would have to spend too much time figuring out what the sign meant and that time is simply wasted. It could also mislead.

The Medium

Finally, the medium of communication must be as short as possible. Like in the previous example of the CEO, if the medium of communication is too long and takes too much time, then the message is likely to be late and loose significance. Use direct e-mails, memos or direct contact instead.

Effective communication can lead to better understanding and higher work efficiency which only results in higher profits. This is the perception that organizations must work with and must develop communication channels with minimum barriers, because the fact remains that barriers cannot be completely removed but they can be minimized.