As we enter the last month or so of 2012 I believe we will hear the phrase… “Where did last year go?” Certainly for me it has flown by and my close friends constantly feel the same. The seasons come and go and before you know it another year has gone.
At lunch in the summer I was having a meal with a fellow practitioner and he said to me… “If my firm’s partners could see the hours which we are now working they would turn in their grave”
Are the work pressures which we have to cope with ordinarily ever going to reduce? With the economic climate which we are faced with I think that is most unlikely. We therefore have to really examine what we do each day and seek to reduce the non-productive and wasted time which can clutter up our working day. I can almost hear some readers being up in arms about any suggestion of there being such time but I am afraid it is prevalent in varying levels for most business owners / managers. Whilst I accept that for smaller businesses it is harder to rearrange procedures, I am going to set out instances that I am aware of to illustrate the main thrust of my argument:-
1. There is a company in Northampton that has 30 personnel where the CEO insists on personally opening the post. The post is delivered at 7.30 and the first employees start arriving very soon thereafter for an 8.00 official start time. In this situation it is disappointing that the CEO does not arrive until 9.00. The post is eventually distributed to two departmental heads at 10.00 by the CEO’s secretary. Whilst only a minor point in the working day there is so much wrong with this procedure that could easily be changed for the better. It causes disruption for the departmental heads as they stop work to deal with any post that requires attention. If the CEO insists on wasting his time by opening the post then either he should arrive at 7.30 or delegate the responsibility!
2. Another situation I know of is where the administration manager insists on personally taking all the telesales calls that the business receives. At the same time the person concerned always complains that he does not have sufficient time to carry out his work. In the last week alone I could have personally taken 15 such calls that we receive here, so it is a real problem for businesses to cope with. When you do take these calls you are distracted from what you are doing and undoubtedly lose concentration and so waste valuable productive time. If the manager feels that these calls should be taken, then he should delegate to a more junior member of staff who in fact may relish the responsibility.
3. I know of one sales team where two members are under performing and not keeping or always being late for appointments. Why? They are forever checking their emails just in case some important customer contact is missed. The same are also renowned for taking far too long at customer meetings. In staff assessment meetings they both claim to be under huge time pressures when in fact they are both directly responsible for what is happening. I initiated an introduction of timesheets, whereby all staff had to allocate their time. The two concerned are now performing much better in terms of their own sales and customer satisfaction.
4. I am aware of a double glazing company where there are enormous work pressures for all concerned where their “top“ sales person is forever giving away too generous discounts and promising unrealistic delivery dates. In my opinion he is a “walking” nightmare as he ignores all the rules as he operates with no effective control over him. He alone causes so much work pressures in the production and finance departments as they have to cope with the consequences of what he has arranged for customers. I should have mentioned that he is the boss’s nephew!
5. There is an accountant’s practice I knew of where the two partners insist that all client contact is their responsibility alone. At this point I need to make it clear that the two partners are extremely good at networking, they enjoy their golf and both take 6 weeks annual leave every year. Their senior staff are frustrated at not being able to contact their clients directly, as they feel that they are not trusted to do so and it reflects badly on them from a client’s point of view. Client work takes far too long to be processed to completion and their level of work in progress is twice as high as it should be. Unnecessary pressure is placed on the senior staff as work has always to be completed in a hurry so as to meet filing deadlines. How simple it would be if the two partners were to take a far more modern approach to client services and delegate, rather than clinging on to what was happening in 1980!
6. In 2010 I had a client who achieved a whole host of networking awards for which the owner was rightly very proud. Straight away he received numerous requests to speak at other events and soon got ‘on the circuit’ of speaking engagements. For six months he basked in this glory until I told him in no uncertain terms, that his business was now suffering as he had lost his business focus for what the company was trying to achieve. In this time the company’s staff had to cope with huge work pressures as there was a decline in the level of service to customers as a direct result of the owner suddenly giving less time to running his business.
In setting out the six case studies I hope I have illustrated how one single situation has caused unnecessary pressures for that business and /or its employees and I hope that I have illustrated how important it is that we all look at what we do and try and make ourselves and those around us more efficient. One word that occurs throughout this article is the word “delegate”. Is this something we should also look at?
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