“all done...?” (performance appraisals)

(part of the Total Quality Leadership (TQL) series)

How an organization achieves world class quality excellence depends on its leaders within the organization, at all levels of the organization.  Whether your organization has just started its quality journey with ISO certification or are ready to apply for the world renowned Deming award, the critical success factor to world class quality excellence…it’s all in the leadership!

Leadership skills that make an environment successful are the same skills that we learned when we were little.  Today, performance appraisals.

When we ask children to do something, we tell them what to do and what the expectations are.  "I want you to sweep the kitchen floor and make sure you clean behind the table.  Thank you."  If it's the first time they've done it, we show them how.  We then turn the task over to them, we watch them for a while, and answer questions when asked.  When it appears the child understands the what, the how and the why, we leave them to finish the task. When they are done, they will come in and tell you to "come and look".  You walk into the kitchen, look at the floor and give your comments.  They may range from "good job" to "it looks good but you forgot to clean under the table".

"Good job" means the task is over and expectations have been met.  Depending on the age of the child, if he/she also mopped the floor, expectations were "exceeded".  If the first review means the task was not complete, the child will try again. When finished, the child will come in, and the review process, this time, should net the "good job" appraisal.  If not, the process of sharing with the child what was missed and having the child try again will continue until expectations are met and the "good job" appraisal is achieved.  Not all children learn at the same pace.  It may take only once for one child and several times for another.  One child may just need to understand exactly what you mean ("you didn't tell me to pick it up, you just said 'sweep' ".)  et touché!

Performance appraisals should be used as a way to increase employee achievement.  Back in the day performance evaluations were used as a "gotcha" tool.  To evaluate means to examine and judge something, not a person.  To appraise: HR – to make a formal assessment of an employee or an employee’s performance following an agreed set of criteria.

In our team based environment, both employee and team leader (or manager and director; director and vice president...) sit down and discuss achievements and needed (continuous) improvements of the year past.  This should not be a surprise to either involved.  In a team based environment, we share performance every day.  When a correction needs to be made, we share immediately.  The goal is to continuously coach our team for their success and ours.  The introduction of SMART goals in the '90s was the tool to assist in the professional development of all employees regardless of level.  SMART goals articulate the expectations and eliminate the nebulousness of evaluations (what does "you're a good leader" mean?). 

• Specific  (what is the task or objective?  Attach details if appropriate)
• Measures  (standards and parameters)
• Achievable  (is it?)                         
• Realistic  (is it?)
• Time-bound  (start / finish dates)

When questions are asked, they need to be answered to the satisfaction of the one who asked.  The old "that's why I hired you" comment does nothing to inspire or teach or answer a question.  Today that comment translates to "I don't know but I don't want to tell you I don't know".  It's ok if you don't know, just say that rather than putting the onus on the questioner.

Remember the "one size does not fit all" mantra.  Employees (all humans) learn at a different pace.  Specificity removes ambiguousness in expectations - the "you didn't say x, all you said was....".  The time taken up-front to insure goals are understood, and agreed to, by both the team leader and the associate saves time in behavior and task performance.  It allows for an easy "yes" or "no" when responding to the "all done?" questions in the performance appraisal process.  The goal for both you and the employee is to achieve the "good job" grade.

Are you employing SMART in your business? 

 



THE ABCM OF INVENTORY…For God’s Sake, It’s NOT an Asset!

Waste…is the most extravagant and costly of all expenses.

  Theophrastus in the 3^rd century, B.C.

Two thousand years later, our mantra of lean business practices support this Greek philosophers words.  Eliminating waste throughout the workplace, whether it is too much paper, too many processes, too many layers of management, too many locations or too much inventory, results in immediate bottom-line savings.

I worked with a small business hair supply distributor, tire retailer, and secondary school.  The one similarity within each of these industries was excessive inventory and the incurred associated costs.  Small businesses, from kiosks to office and warehouse or retail stores, are in the same dire need to reduce their inventory levels with process improvement as are large corporations.

What Do We Do Now

By its very nature, inventory as an asset is a contradiction with JIT/lean manufacturing philosophies that demands we order only what we need, when we need it.  Moving “inventory” to the liability side of the balance sheet encourages its reduction and/or elimination.  Until this happens, corporations and small businesses will continue to focus on layoffs (people) rather than addressing dramatic process changes and inventory ordering efficiencies that must be resolved (organization).

Prove it to Yourself

ABCM allows us to quantify our costs.  I’ve designed a worksheet to help you validate this point.

actual product cost (from supplier) + transportation (from the supplier to you) + insurance (while moving) + unloading / unpacking + storage costs + warehouse costs      insurance      maintenance + transportation (from you to customer) + security expense	$ ___________________ $ ___________________ $ ___________________ $ ___________________ $ ___________________ $ ___________________ $ ___________________ $ ___________________
Add to the above, the overall costs of
+ physical inventories (and all the errors       that come from this activity) + the annual state, local, or federal taxes     paid on inventory values + administrative paperwork throughout      the entire process + human resource allocation	$ ___________________ $ ___________________ $ ___________________ $ ___________________
REAL inventory dollar outlay	$ ___________________

What Needs to be Done?

The savings of monies on inventory waste can better be invested on capital equipment needs, resource requirements and salary compensation.  Evaluating these expenses and developing diagnostic data for each will highlight the priority of work to be done.  Excel software (for those in global locations that may not have MRP systems) will take your data and translate it into graphs that will point you in the right direction.  This will help in defining action for solutions.

Both the hair salon distributor and the tire retailer gained capacity for current and needed inventory space by throwing out old and obsolete products (some as old as 5 years on products with a 6 month shelf life!) that were taking up space.  Rather than spending money for additional warehouse / shelf space and incurring capital costs, both were able to put more money into buying products they needed and, in one case, to provide raises (albeit small) to their (extremely appreciative) employees.

Once wasted costs are addressed and corrective actions are in place, the move (and the mindset) of inventory from asset to liability will be one that begins to change the business to an efficient, value added growth position.  In the global, and local, competitive marketplace that we live in today, that can only mean success.

http://educationnonpareil.webnode.com/home