Million Signatures

Archive for the ‘Management’ Category

Two scenes of beauty and happiness, side by side on the television. Flip: a preview of the latest hot model of cards for 2006. Flip: the most recent addition to the fully high-tech camera phones. Flip: an ad of the latest hot perfume for men. Flip: a new commercial of one of the flourishing fast food chain in the country. Flip: a preview of what will happen next week on the longest running soap opera.

A few hours of television each day and a few flips of the remote can get you to see hundreds of commercial and advertisements. The television has been an effective tool for modern day advertising. But not all business owners can afford the cost of television advertising so they stick to the conventional method of paper and ink marketing.

Catalogs are one way of getting your products recognized in the market. Most customers would ask for a catalog before purchasing so if you have one in hand you can easily address your customers needs. When mailing your catalogs it is important that you comprehend everything you can about your customers and prospects. You must obtain their demographic, psychographic and statistical data and use that information to better address your marketing efforts to develop the business. Likewise, as many people are mobile these days it is important to keep an updated list of contact information to make sure that they receive your catalog. You need also to make certain that every prospect effort and every customer contact is better than the last.

Front covers also play an important role in the success of a catalog. They serve as the gateway into your catalog, hence, it is essential that the cover must encourage prospects to open the door and step through the amazing world inside. If you want to use paintings in your front cover ask yourself first, do the paintings showcase your products? Does it tell the reader what you sell without having to open the catalog? Is your brand name easily recognized? If your answer is yes, then a painting on the front cover can be a good idea. Keep in mind though that even if some people loved your painting cover, others would not be motivated by the artwork to turn the cover and buy. Also, remember that the unconscious mind is not necessarily rational but it is pretty influential. So avoid catalog designs that would make your audience unconsciously think that the product is not right for them.

So even if high-tech advertising is flourishing, the conventional marketing method is still one of the most reliable and profitable manner of promoting a business. Thus, the marketing ability of catalogs should never be underestimated.

Most organizations conduct employee surveys of various types either annually, every two years or sporadically. Some organizations use the data from the employee survey to affect real change that contributes to their ongoing success. There are organizations who like to focus on comparing their survey scores to the scores of other organizations and there are the organizations that do little with their survey results. The focus of this article is to discuss the middle group: those organizations that like to focus on and compare their employee survey scores against the average scores of all the organizations that are in a third party database.

Many surveying companies sell their services on the basis that they will be able to compare the scores of the one company against the average score of all of the organizations in their database. Comparing yourself to someone else is enticing. We have been exposed to comparative data from the first day we stepped inside a school. Throughout our primary and secondary education we were compared to the rest and typically this comparison was against the “class average”. We knew who the smartest and the dumbest kids were but it was the average that counted. Was I above or below the class average? That was important in terms of dealing with our own self esteem and dealing with our parents. This was not the case for all students. The parents of some students demanded top marks and that is exactly what those few students worked towards. They had to be the best. They had to have the top marks.

This was all very interesting but in the end it was irrelevant. When it came time to apply to university a new standard had to be reached. University entrance requirements varied but one thing was clear. Average marks were not good enough. In fact being above average in many instances was not good enough. University entrance requirements were demanding and one had to strive for a new and much higher standard than “average”. The profile or status of a university that you were interested in attending, determined the level of academic excellence you had to achieve.

It is puzzling to see how many organizations fall into the trap of placing a great deal of emphasis on comparing their surveys scores to a database that represents the average of a number of companies. These comparisons are sought not only for the overall scores of the employee survey, but for every question in the survey.

It would appear that a fundamental question needs to be asked by every organization-why are we conducting an employee survey in the first place and what are we going to do with the results.

From a strategic perspective it would seem reasonable to think that an organization would wish at the very least, to demonstrate that the survey is helping the organization to achieve their strategic goals. In other words, they are conducting the employee survey as a way of obtaining employee information that can be used to improve for example, workplace practices in order to lift their employees’ working experience. In turn this will lift the customer experience and profits.

However, if this or some other strategic purpose is not being fulfilled by the employee survey than the value of conducting the survey is questionable. One could argue that comparing oneself to other organizations is in fact a legitimate strategic objective. It is worth knowing how you compare to the best. How does your stock performance compare to the best in your business sector-not the average of all the companies in your business sector but only the best? How do your employee survey scores compare to the best in your business sector-not the average of all the businesses in the database but only the best?

Comparing oneself to the very best is legitimate especially if the best sets a benchmark that you adopt as your own. But to compare oneself to the average serves no useful purpose. If a senior management group knows that their scores are better than the average of all the companies in a database, strategically of what use is this information. Perhaps it may give them a sense of pride knowing that they are better than the average. But it may also lull them into a false sense of confidence. The question that should be top of mind is “are we really as good as we can be and are we really achieving a level of excellence that will sustain us over the long term.”

For example, employee turnover in the retail sector is fairly high. Most retailers take it for granted. Entec Corporation has been working with Gap Inc. Canada for several years. Gap offers excellent training programs especially for their associate managers and store managers. In 1999, Gap was routinely being raided by other retailers and their annual turnover rate for store managers was 39% and for associate managers it was 48%. This was costing Gap hundreds of thousands of dollars each year in recruiting and training. With over 200 stores and 10,000 employees across Canada, these costs were unacceptable. Entec Corporation was engaged by Gap to conduct an Organizational Health Survey. Gap acted upon the recommendations in the survey and was able to reduce manager turnover rates to 13% in one year.

But these lower turnover rates were accompanied by real business gains. For example, secret shopper scores increased by 5% after only eight months and sales in Canada over the last few years have improved to a level where the Canadian operation moved from being about in the middle to becoming one of the most profitable divisions in the world. The survey results were linked directly to the bottom line.

If Gap accepted “the trap of comparing themselves to the average” and accepted the conventional wisdom that “this is the average turnover rate in retail so we are OK”, they would not have saved thousands of dollars each year in training and recruiting. More importantly they would not have experienced the benefits that reduced turnover brought them; namely preserving human capital of highly trained managers that helped to grow Gap’s business. This last point is typically overlooked. The impact of a reduction in turnover of well trained employees to the bottom line of a company is considerably higher than the cost savings achieved from reducing recruiting and training.

Several points need to be considered when embarking on an employee survey:
1. Develop clear strategic objectives
2. Measure towards those objectives
3. Inform your employees of the survey scores
4. Follow up with positive implementation
5. If you must compare yourself to others, compare yourself only to the best

If this process is not followed the organization can expect:

1. Employee participation rates in the survey to be low (30% or lower)
2. Rising employee cynicism with the organization (why bother if the activity of completing an employee survey does not make a difference)
3. Employees become disengaged from the organization
4. The organization loses an opportunity to make significant strides in performance

Conclusion

The trap an organization falls into when they become focused on benchmarking themselves against others is that they lose sight of what is really important-what is it that we are doing well and where do we need to improve in order to create an even better organization than the one we already have. If you must compare yourself to others, compare yourself only to the best and do not get side tracked. Focus

People who work for and who belong to institutions have one thing in common: they all wear uniforms. Uniforms are dress codes, usually distinct in style, clothing and even color that can make the wearer easily identifiable not only to his peers but also to other people.

Take for example the military personnel who are all clad in fatigues, except for some who have their own distinctive brand of clothing like those in the navy or other branches of the military. But no matter what, most of them can be identified through the use of fatigue or what they call seven colors.

Then there are those who belong to the medical profession who generally wear white not only for their laboratory coats but for their daily hospital wear. Doctors and nurses all wear white but nurses are given more freedom in wearing other colors.

Even students of particular schools are required to wear uniforms to make them identifiable as students of a certain school. So why do people generally wear uniforms?

People are required to wear uniforms because it is a sign of conformity or being one within a certain group. Conformity means the person who wears the uniform is a bona fide member of such group and he abides by the rules and regulations of the group.

Wearing uniforms have psychological effects among the wearers and the people around them. Civilians who see military personnel in their uniforms are most often awed by the authority projected by the uniform. Doctors earn respect when people see them wearing their white laboratory coats because such uniform is identified with saving lives.

Uniforms have become widely used that people do not have to go far to search for specific uniforms. There are various suppliers that have established their presence in the web and they have made all kinds of uniforms available online. Uniform for nurses have become a common thing that nurses can easily order their uniforms from the web.

People who need other kinds of uniforms can choose from the online catalogs that are available in the websites of different companies. Some of these companies provide orders for all kinds of uniforms that they no longer send individual uniform lists or photos to their clients. All the clients need to do is to browse the website for the uniform they are looking for and they can order them online or through telephone.

There are companies that can deliver orders in a span of a week or two. However bulk orders should be ordered ahead of time to make sure that they are delivered at the time the client needs them. They can also order uniforms in different sizes.

Ordering uniforms online can be very fast and efficient because transactions are completed at the click of the mouse and payments are generally made through major credit cards.

Clients should also specify the exact address where they want their orders to be shipped. Some companies provide free shipping for bulk orders of uniforms. However, other companies require the clients to pay for the shipping of their orders.