by Charles T Wilson on June 11, 2013
What’s the fastest way to improve business productivity? Lots of organizations struggle to just set basic priorities, get things done on time/on budget, and keep everyone focused and safe on the job. There’s so much “noise” in today’s business world it’s hard to know who’s on first – with internet orders, marketing key words, employee accidents, customer or anonymous complaints, lawsuits and new regulations for compliance. One day of spring cleaning is good risk management.
What are the benefits? Why spend a day doing this?
- The simple benefits include employee safety and customer satisfaction that come from removing tripping and fire hazards, for example, and getting rid of piles of old documents and obsolete forms to focus on the real priorities.
- Then there are the more elusive benefits of streamlining core processes, removing red tape, and deleting ancient documents and tax records that can only cause headaches and extra legal costs if someone comes looking.
- A clean-up provides immediate productivity improvements in the speed and quality of customer service, project management, and order processing.
How can you take effective action? What can be cleaned?
- Start with the “piles” around the office, workshop, closets, etc. Clean up all work spaces and create specific places for stuff that accumulates – shredding, rags, pallets, old marketing material, etc. Look at stored documents, tax records, etc. How much are you paying for storage? What better use could that space have in your workplace? Do all stored boxes have destruction dates?
- A Document Retention Policy (it’s really about destruction) will be your legal answer to outside questioning about what was destroyed, when, and by whom. Consult your legal and tax advisors in setting destruction dates.
- Look into computers – documents and email. Look at all drives, devices and archived files, disks, tapes, and hard drives. Employees always set up their own “personal” storage spots. Turn over all rocks! E-discovery work by attorneys can be extremely expensive if you have mounds of old, archaic data and files.
- Again, a Document Retention Policy is your first step.
- Ensure that destruction is secure and complete – especially with old hard drives where simple “deletion” often does not remove all data.
- And check all vehicles for obsolete tools and equipment, trash and “lost” clothing, personal protective gear and expired documentation. Driver safety can be at stake with these distractions. Communicate a clean vehicle policy for all.
- Finally, look at your emergency supplies and first aid cabinets. Get rid of the obsolete items; update the rest and set a schedule for future reviews.
Take a Spring Cleaning Day to get rid of spider webs and dust bunnies. Then you and staff are not “haunted” by what’s lurking in piles and old dicey emails. And you may even find that contact file you’ve wanted to follow up with or a $20 bill!
What are your suggestions? Comments are welcome!
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by Charles T Wilson on May 7, 2013
“If you don’t know where you’re going you might wind up someplace else.” ~Yogi Berra
Isn’t planning great? Some folks seem to spend their time writing stuff down and never really doing anything. While others write what they just did on a To Do list so they can cross it off. Yogi’s quote above is often paraphrased as “if you don’t know where you’re going, you certainly aren’t going to get there.”
Eventually (meaning NOW!) we have to take action. This is the third RiskSmart Tip in the Exit Planning series (see Transitions and Exit Stage Right ). Here are 10 specific Action Steps that are a continuation of last month’s Checklist.
Action Steps . Work on these key pieces of your business while planning.
- Review your finances – personal and business to clarify your future needs. Consider fee-only financial planners (see Certified Financial Planners ) and don’t forget tax planning.
- This exercise needs to be kept up to date, and will impact your decisions about goals – for example, can you afford to give the business away?
- Decide on your goals. Will you just close the doors (because no one else can do what you do), gift the firm to friends or family, or sell – either to employees or to a third party?
- Clarifying this step about target recipients or buyers impacts how you grow, diversify and develop your employees for the future.
- Grow your business! Use every trick in your success book to move forward, trim fat, and get the best people on board to improve both your top and bottom lines.
- This seems obvious, but it’s easy to get lost in planning or stuck in “unmotivated.” Keep close to an advisor or two who will relentlessly urge action here
- Diversify customers and suppliers – create a broad, solid foundation for your business future.
- This not only increases your present success and profit, regardless of your goals in #2, it also impacts the salability of your business in the future.
- Develop leadership and cross-training – remember your “Long Vacation” plan from the previous tip?
- Maintain your “Operations Manual” with guidelines for all key processes. And you must develop trust in your employees and not micro-manage or do everything yourself.
- Create a succession plan – again this allows that vacation!
- Focus on roles and responsibilities for teams and individuals, and backup people for each key process. Test them with small responsibilities now to watch them grow and gain confidence.
- Interview and choose Advisors.
- This is an on-going action step to always having the right, objective professionals helping you succeed in all areas.
- Learn about business valuation if you want to sell.
- Understanding the hidden complexities of this technique will guide you to increasing your strategic value for any target buyer.
- Manage your risks.
- Identify your biggest risks and new issues coming down the regulatory or legal road; be pro-active and invest in safety, quality and prevention.
- Repeat! Go back to number 2 above.
- Update annually and tweak your Action Steps! Set aside ½ day every month to review progress and revise your To Do list.
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