Archive for the ‘Management’ Category
Organizational Management Guide : Organizational Change
Change management is the topic for this part of our guide to organizational management…
Organizational change is required at different points in an organization’s life, such as strategy changes, additions or removal of products or services offered, or even the nature of the company’s operations overall.
It’s not something that can be ignored, indeed those organizations that try to do that inevitably fail. Yet, it needn’t be complicated, following a few simple principles will go a long way to successfully managing changes in an organization.
Changes will only happen if the employees of an organization embrace the idea of the change. Its easy enough to develop and distribute a policy, but it is of absolutely no use if your employees refuse to follow it by continuing to do things the way in which they’re most comfortable doing them. Any organization facing a change must take into account that the change has to be accepted at all levels of the organization.
Effectively communicating with staff about not only why the change is necessary, but how it will benefit them in the end, is critical. Humans have a tendency to focus on what they might have to give up as a result of the change, but this can be offset by managements strong emphasis on how the change will ultimately result in positive advantages to staff. No matter how great the strategy appears in theory, it will not hold water until staff accepts it.
When proposing changes to systems or processes within an organization, it is very important to solicit the feedback and recommendations of those who will implement the change. While different means of communicating to staff may be necessary (things such as newsletters, speeches, values statements, or corporate videos from senior management), there is no substitute for involving staff in the overall process. When people have an opportunity to participate, it provides them with a sense of ownership, and that can be extraordinarily beneficial when it comes to implementation.
Tags: Management
Some Great Benefits of Psychometrics Measuring to Help with Recruiting
If you are thinking about psychometrics testing there are sixperks that they can help you with the recruiting process. Finding out who the right possibilities are for the right positions is the best thing that you can do. Everything you need to know can be found through a few incomplex tests which will enable you to match a candidate to the right position.
Matching employees to the right positions can be exceedingly demanding and is what makes recruiting a tough job. Psychometrics emotional intelligence testing is the best thing you can do so you can have the most information about a personage. Tests like this allow you to match the right candidate to the right position and helps with decreasing turnover rates.
There are online personality assessments for recruiters which can help you determine what your goals are. Benchmarks can be determined through a simple profiling wizard. Finding the right candidates cannot be done until you know exactly what is it you want first.
It is a very difficult process to assess candidates. Psychometrics testing gives you the chance to learn more about the candidate?s abilities by measuring their intelligence and personality levels. These online tests provide an easy and beneficial way to obtain knowledge.
Another benefit of psychometrics emotional intelligence testing is that the information gathered from each of the candidates is organized in tables. The right candidates for specific positions can be generated by the computer system. This is a quick and easy way to gather a list of qualified applicants for positions and is very helpful.
Online personality evaluation provide reporting methods which also allow you to get detailed information about specific candidates. This is an excellent way to pull information of specific candidates that seem right for the job to make the best determination of who is best suited for the position.
When interviewing people as a recruiter it is important to be in a position of knowledge to place the right person in a position. Performing psychometrics emotional intelligence testing on a candidate allows you to understand their abilities. This type of testing allows you to be clear on the candidate?s skills during the interview process.
The final reason why online personality assessments are the best choice for recruiters is that they allow you to make the best fit for a job. This means that the employer will have a lower turnover rate, you can make the most money off of the candidate, and the employer will be pleased with your skills to match a position. You will be more informed about the skills and abilities of the candidates before you make any decisions on hiring candidates.
Tags: human resource management, Management, online assessment testing, online personality assessments, online psychometric testing, personality questionnaire, psychometric assessment system, recruiting, recruitment testing, talent assessment, talent management strategies
Managing Programme Benefits and Outcomes
An area which many programmes seem to lack is Benefits Management. This seems a bit silly when the fundamental reason for beginning a programme is to realise benefits through change; whether it’s to do things in a new way or to do things that will influence others to change.
The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) in London has defined MSP principles that include emphasis on Benefits Management (BM) with the following keys stages:
The Benefits Management Process
The Benefits Management Strategy
The Identification of Benefits
The Quantification of Benefits
The Benefit Profiles
Benefit Modelling
Benefits Realisation Plan
The Review of Benefit Realisation
The Responsibilities for Benefits Managements
As benefits are the quantification of the change delivered by a programme, the benefits should be used to help direct and make decisions throughout the course of the programme.
Programme Managers should determine the critical measures and indicators of success and make arrangements to ensure the programme remains appropriate and on track to deliver the intended benefits and outcomes.
Programme Managers should check that:
- All the planned outcomes remain achievable;
- All the planned outcomes are not changed in scope, relationship or value;
- All the main stakeholders remain committed and confident that outcomes will be achieved when planned;
- The plan for achieving outcomes is being managed effectively;
- This plan is monitored against agreed performance measures or key performance indicators and any problems are promptly addressed and resolved.
Where key benefits have been properly identified, e.g. more effective service delivery or increased efficiency, these benefits should be properly managed in the same way. We should be able to define exactly what a benefit will deliver in a way that can be adequately measured, using realistic timescales, risks & costs. Every benefit should be linked to planned outcomes and every benefit should be assigned to an owner who is responsible and accountable for its eventual realisation.
For major programmes, there is likely to be a business change manager coordinating benefits realisation on behalf of the business areas owning the benefits.
Tags: Business, change management, consulting, leadership, Management, program management, programme management, project management
Effective Supply Chain Management can increase profit
If you lag behind in technology, you are putting your efficiency at risk. Supply chain management is simple if you are shipping one thing at a time, but when shipping multiple SKU orders, they need to be directed to the proper shipping point. A competent software management tool can maximize your direct plant shipping opportunities. It can save you time and efficiencies that will save you money.
It gets even more complex. How do you determine to ship from the plant if only 95% of the product is located there? If you do determine that it is ok to ship, how do the one or two missing pallets get ordered and later transferred to make the shipment complete? For most companies, it doesn’t happen this way. These companies give up on anything but single SKU, fully in-stock orders because it is too tricky to do anything more complex. Their supply chain systems don’t support this and they are forced to invoke the KISS (keep it simple) principle. They find the location with all the stock and send the order from there.
But KISS is high cost. On local campuses consisting of a plant and several warehouses, companies like Procter & Gamble have realized there is a better way. In their extensive supply chain management program, P & G uses a distribution master scheduling system called AutoScheduler from Transportation l Warehouse Optimization to optimize their direct plant shipping by:
A. Maximizing DPS by pre-positioning inventory; B. Identify the best place to ship from; C. Ensure the shipment is complete by re-deploying the inventory; D. Define the customer service goal of on-time, every-time and establish the dock and staff schedule to make sure this happens
Supply chain management is in a constant state of analysis. You are continuously checking and re-checking. That is why most developers prefer the KISS principle. Simply, it is easier. But KISS does not always save you time and money that a more sophisticated software product will.
What is needed is a timely, capacity balanced optimization system that performs the sourcing analysis in near real-time and determines that the order should ship from the Chicago plant. There are tools for distributed order processing - but most of those are designed for the likes of catalog shippers. In the catalog world, if there is insufficient inventory in one location, then the order will be redirected to another. Most applications that tackle the more substantive issues of ship point optimization in companies shipping truckloads of consumer-packaged goods have been custom built. One new entry in the market is AutoSPA (Automatic Ship Point Assignment), also from Transportation l Warehouse Optimization. This system looks at the total cost of delivery - from producing plant to customer - as well as potential costs for product expiring in one location and being scrapped.
AutoSPA can limit the number of shipments made from any site. For example, lets say there are 200 shipments made in the South East. AutoSPA determines which sites can adequately handle these loads.
You can save nearly twice as much as DPS alone on ship-point assignment in supply chain management. It is worth doing.
When you consider a transportation consultant, Transportation | Warehouse Optimization have been working with some of the top companies in America, finding practical solutions that have resulted in saving millions of dollars. They take a long-term view and keep the client as top priority. Contact them at www.Transportation Optimization.com for transportation cost reductions or solutions to warehouse challenges. While visiting their website, sign up for their exclusive free Truck Loading Manual that can SAVE YOU MONEY and offer you the perfect Operator Manual for truck operators. Transportation l Warehouse Optimization - Solutions that work. Solutions that save.
Tags: Logistical software, Management, Shipping, Shipping industry, software, Supply Chain Management, Supply chain Management Strategies, Transportation, transportation software, Trucking
Workplace Efficiencies
In most companies there are inefficiencies that cost companies a lot of money. These inefficiencies can hide in paper flow, job descriptions, management oversight of employees, recruiting processes, training, and just about every other nook and cranny of the business. The larger the company becomes the more these inefficiencies cause lost revenue and waste. Therefore, fixing inefficiencies is important in maintaining a lean machine.
Inefficiencies are not always easy to uncover because few actually take a look at the processes and procedures the company is using. This is due to the inability of executives to concentrate on something besides product quotas and profits. However, failure to look for inefficiencies slowly erodes profits like a slow growing disease. The organizations moves slower and uses too energy to produce the product.
In many cases paper flows to the wrong places or has too many stops along the way to be effective. When this happens processes take too long and require too many people to complete. If a company were to cut down on waste they would be able to realize higher profits and reduce overhead. The support function should be a contributing factor to production not a detractor.
Sometimes the organization is not using human labor to its most efficient end. Some departments may have overcapacity while other departments may not have enough. At times the goals and objectives of the organization do not have the right employee mix to accomplish them. Thus it would be necessary to adjust the labor allocations to places that best fulfill corporate objectives.
There are times when your strongest employees are not in the places that help them utilize their skills to their fullest extent. Other times it is possible that the wrong employees are being used in places where it is critical to have the right employees. Sometimes increasing the compensation of certain management positions could result in the attracting of more skillful management that can save a department hundreds of thousands of dollars in operational efficiencies.
Efficiencies can come from just about any corner of the business. Defining your product, determining your objectives and adjusting everything within the organization to meet the objectives and increase the value of the product is hugely important. However, most organizations never come around to increasing efficiencies so they continue to lose money year after year without so much as a blink of an eye.
Some places to look for inefficiencies are as follows:
Paper flow Labor allocation Operations Skill level Supplies Management
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