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When Double Duty is Damaging...

ABS Staff — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 04:22:00 GMT

In any office there runs the risk of having more than one person performing the same task. Duplication of duties can be easily managed by effective time and project management. Keeping track of individual tasks and checking in with employees on a regular basis will help to alleviate the ongoing risk of having too many hands in one pot.

On the other side, there are also times when you will have one person performing duties that should actually be shared among other staff members. This can be a sizeable issue in Accounting, and so many other departments within your organization.

With the cutting being made to staffing in many organizations, you may feel tempted to double up the duties of certain employees in your company. Perhaps that seems like a great idea on the surface, but consider the fact that in certain departments duties need to be effectively separated to provide accurate checks and balances as well as a clear definition of individual roles.

If your Consumer Relations department is run by your company’s Legal Counsel, you have to believe that at some point the two positions will counteract one another. There may come a time when these two positions clash as one should be out for the best interest of the customer and the other is looking out for the company. It will be difficult for you to clearly reconcile issues with customers when your legal counsel is advising you don’t have to do more than “x” to quell the situation. If the customer is expecting more concern from you and doesn’t feel they have received that, you will begin losing customers for reasons that will, initially, be unknown to you.

Cost cutting is essential in times of financial downturns; however, you should do so strategically. Set forth effective plans for job function reconciliations. Begin the process of rewriting job descriptions to make the changes official, even if temporarily. Sit down and discuss these changes with those who will be taking on these additional tasks – they will be the ones most able to give the most valuable insight. If the job duties will cross in a potentially hazardous manner, it won’t be worth it to your company to make the change, even on a temporary basis. With all that can happen and go wrong in the course of a business day, you don’t need to find ways to create conflict of interest issues for yourself and your staff.

Checks and balances aren’t just for accounting. You should apply this logic to every department in your company. Any chain of events occurring in your company needs to include the appropriate steps and measures that will check and subsequently back the efforts that came before. Allowing one person to manage roles that are essentially opposite one another is setting yourself and that employee up for ultimate failure.

With companies stretching resources to the limits, creating more stress for employees through assigning them conflicting roles will cause more problems than it will solve. Not to mention the employee will feel additional pressure that, essentially, can’t be resolved. Cost cutting may be essential for your company now, but it is important to remember to do so strategically and while keeping the best interest of your employees in mind.

Office Safety and Communication

ABS Staff — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 16:13:00 GMT

From the school system to the receptionist in a law firm…office and staff safety is an important aspect of your company’s culture. Particularly if you are in a field where you may be more likely to get on visitor’s or customer’s “bad side” for any reason; their bad day will quickly become your bad day. When customer service is no longer working to calm the situation, it is at that time you will wish you had an emergency plan for your staff to alert others that there is an emergency or dangerous situation, or to allow them to inform you or others when they feel threatened.

From sending an All Page with a fictitious name through the office (one everyone will know means an emergency situation), to having a plan of action in place to keep someone out of your place of business, or to remove someone from you place of business. Having some level of emergency planning beyond your fire escape route could be essential.

Even if you are not working directly out of your office or store (franchise owners, etc.) you should have a plan in place to instruct your staff on how to deal with disgruntled or potentially dangerous customers. It may not seem like a big deal now, but keep in mind it is never a big deal until it happens to you or your staff.

Start planning by meeting with your staff and asking if they have every felt threatened or have been threatened in any way. Discuss possible situations that could arise and brainstorm how to most systematically and safely calm the visitor or call for help. You may even consider purchasing mechanisms to allow the receptionist to unlock the door for each visitor at her/his discretion; or even installing an emergency button system to alert not only other staff members, but also local emergency respondents.

Once you have a plan, run drills as you would your fire drill. The more familiar you are with the process, the safer everyone will feel coming to work.

If you never have to use it, great! But, it is always a good strategy to have an Emergency Action Plan in place. Just the very existence of one will give both you and your staff more peace of mind.

Stress, the Workplace, and You

ABS Staff — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 15:21:00 GMT

Workplace stress can seem all consuming and incredibly overwhelming. The effects of such stress can seem a lot like depression. You may feel sad, or angry; experience inability to concentrate, or to get motivated; you might even feel hopeless, or trapped.

Noticing the signs of stress will help you find ways to alleviate such feelings. If you are relatively happy with your job but are now feeling overwhelmed by the additional duties that may have been added to your daily task list, you may consider requesting assistance from a co-worker with whom you may be able to create a work-sharing system. This system will work to the benefit of all parties, assisting one another with various projects and assignments when either of you feel overwhelmed. You may also consider going to a supervisor or manager to discuss your growing concerns with the amount of work that is being placed in your hands. Let them know you are primarily concerned with the quality of the output which may suffer with your growing level of responsibilities. Maybe a little reprioritizing is all you need so all of your deadlines don’t fall in at the same time.

If you are not truly happy in your position, look elsewhere. The market today may not be at its best; however, with a reasonable amount of networking, posting your resume anywhere it can be posted, and conducting both web and print searches, you are certain to locate a position within a company that will afford you the satisfaction and happiness you deserve in your career. The old adage, “seek and ye shall find,” seems most appropriate here. If you keep telling yourself you can’t, you won’t. Even if you are connected with a good recruiter who will work for you to locate the best new opportunities, a small change is still a change. You only need to evaluate whether or not it is a change in the direction you ultimately want to go.

After a reasonable search, if you honestly believe there are no opportunities out there for you, create one. Either way, you are spending your time on something productive and focusing on something positive as opposed to dwelling on the negative aspects of your current situation.

From receptionists to business owners, mailroom clerks to CEOs, everyone, at some point feels the pressure from the workplace. If you are happy where you are, reach out for help. Trying to deal with it alone can only increase the amount of stress you are dealing with, making the symptoms that much worse - and bringing you that much closer to complete burn-out.

Allow others to be brought into your situation. By simply having a conversation with another person, you may find that they have solutions to some of the problems you are having; or have come up with faster methods of completing tasks you are being faced with.

If nothing else, you will find someone who will vent frustrations and concerns with you. Sometimes you just need to get it off your chest.

Marketing In A Highly Technical Age...

ABS Staff — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 21:02:00 GMT

So many marketing options to try, so little time to figure out which will work best. Have no fear - you actually don’t have to try them all. When you’re feeling overwhelmed or excessively bombarded with the number of options in front of you, just go back to basics. Much like technology, just because it’s available, doesn’t mean you HAVE to use it…

Deeply think about who your target audience is. How do they gather information? Where do they turn for answers? Are they conducting the research themselves or will someone most likely do it for them, if so, how will that third party obtain information? In this, you’ll define your “true” target audience. Maybe it isn’t the individual specifically, but an adult child, or another type of point of contact you should be focusing on. If you aren’t familiar with that population, do some research of your own for related demographical data. Find out how they most prefer to communicate; what type of information captures their attention? How much information might they want initially?

Only after this, potentially exhaustive, search and review can you accurately begin weeding through your long list of marketing and advertising mediums. Focus on only those that will be most likely to really grab the attention of your target and bring you the largest return on your marketing dollars.

With your list of good mediums in hand and your target market in mind, you are now ready to formulate your plan. You never want to begin any type of marketing or advertising without a working plan in place, including a budget. Your plan will be integral in helping you to keep your marketing on track and within budget. Detail all expenses; list all campaign segments and any deadlines or go-live dates; note your benchmarks; finally, define what a successful campaign will look like once it has completed.

If more than one person will be working on these efforts, you’ll want to utilize a good project sharing tool that will allow you to input and share real time information. An added bonus might be the ability to monitor your progress using a dashboard reporting function. With your dashboard, if you see one particular medium or process not performing, you can stop it before you lose too much time or money chasing the opportunity.

A good CRM tool should also be integrated if you aren’t already using one. This will help you and your team to keep track of all new or regular inquirers and also make sure each contact receives a follow up of some type based on their request or your processes. This is where associating marketing codes to your campaigns will come in handy. Those codes will help in determining the rate of success of your campaign.

Even if it is an older contact, you will still see that a current campaign brought them back.

Old or new, Never Leave A Contact Untouched.

Certainly this is a quick and nonspecific marketing outline just to keep important items in your mind when you’re preparing for any type of marketing or advertising…A quick refresher never hurt anyone.

With a much more detailed plan ready and a good team in place…go forth and market!

It's That Time Again...Time for Taxes

ABS Staff — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 02:39:00 GMT

Today’s Tax Tip: Try to find the resources to utilize a professional for your preparation and submission.

Too many good businesses have suffered financially as a result of incomplete or incorrect filings. The fees and penalties that can be assessed, most times unnecessarily, will prove to be exponentially worse than any fee you would pay a professional preparer. Not only can they ensure you won’t owe fees, they can also find any deductions you may not be aware of. You may end up with an unexpected check to not only pay your professional, but also use toward your business this year.

If you know for an absolute fact you will not be able to locate the finances to use a professional, ask around to see if anyone knows enough to at lease review your filings before you send them in. Even if they aren’t experts, another set of eyes looking over your shoulder could still work in your favor.

This may be a good time to jump on board any professional networking groups and make connections with people who you can call upon for support or answers (let them know they can call you when they need your expertise in other areas).

Remember to ask if they know of any additional forms or payments you may need to be made aware of. You can also feel free to make a call to your state agency for specific guidance.

Don’t forget to watch the deadlines and file for any necessary extensions if you think you will need more time! This could also give you time if that is all you need to gather the funds to pay that professional…