Why Employers Need An Employment Policy Manual

by Jim White

A well-written Employment Policy Manual will clarify many of the expectations within the workplace. It will also minimize your risk of facing expensive litigation, such as a wrongful dismissal or a constructive dismissal lawsuit, by ensuring that your current employment practices conform to current employment-related legislation and case law. An Employment Policy Manual is like an insurance policy.

If you should find yourself facing a judge defending yourself against an employment-related lawsuit, the only reasonable defence that will work for you will be based on the documentation that you can provide that clearly shows due diligence on your part. The Employment Policy Manual, along with a clear ‘paper trail’ of disciplinary notes, etc., will be an important part of that due diligence defence.
From the point of view of your employees, both current and prospective, the Employment Policy Manual will clarify much of what is, or will be, expected of them during their employment. It will also clarify and communicate what they can expect of you, their employer.

The best employees will be looking for employment with organizations that present their employment practices in a clear and confident manner.

Ideally, the workplace expectations should be clearly communicated before the employment relationship is established. A copy of the Employment Policy Manual should be given to the prospective employee as part of the employment contract.

A well-written Employment Policy Manual, along with consistent application of those policies, will:

• clarify and communicate many of the general expectations of the workplace;
• ensure that everyone in the organization has the same understanding of the general parameters (non-job specific) within which they work;
• help to ensure a degree of consistency in operations, output and quality;
• be useful as a training and orientation tool;
• serve as an arbitration device in the event of disputes;
• be the basis for performance management, including discipline;
• reflect the “personality” of the organization;
• support good employer-employee relations;
• attract the ‘right’ employees to the organization; and
• reduce the chances of expensive litigation.

Links

• image courtesy of .shock

Jim White, JSW & ASSOCIATES, has over 40 years of experience involving close interaction with a very wide variety of organizations. He believes that one of the most important responsibilities of management in any organization is to ensure that all employees understand what is expected of them. You can contact Jim by e-mail at jwhite@j-s-w.com. You’ll find more about Jim on the Experion website and LinkedIn.

Survive and Thrive In Turbulent Times

by James Phillipson


When a business encounters turbulent times, there are many ways that the CFO/Controller and CEO can face the challenges to enhance the financial position and significantly improve opportunities to restore business growth. These strategies enhance the likelihood of the business surviving turbulent times and being put in a position to thrive again, when the environment improves.
 

Cash flow management

The management of cash flow is one of the cornerstones of most successful businesses and becomes much more critical when a business goes through turbulent times. We all agree that “cash is king” but many businesses leave the decisions about cash flow management to the clerical level staff and only occasionally instruct that minor changes be made. The CFO/Controller and CEO must have management of cash flow as one of their key areas of focus during challenging times.

Consider the possibility of your biggest debtor (often your biggest customer) being unable to meet established payment terms. In many businesses this would cause a potentially fatal cash flow crisis. This is not an unforeseeable event for many businesses in today’s economic climate.

So many actions can be taken to improve cash flow from working capital that it often only requires some focus and a determination to find the best way to reduce your risk. The first place to focus your attention is on collection of accounts receivable. See the article on speeding up the collection of receivables in the Mastermind archives


Consider your ability to release cash tied up in your business by managing the following:

1. Payment of suppliers
2. Reduction of inventory
3. Speeding up the production cycle

Banking Facilities

We have all heard that “a banker is someone who only wants to sell you an umbrella when the sun is shining,” or some variation on that. Certainly, if you expect to have a downturn in financial results in the next few months, then now is the best time to ask for an increase in the facility that you have with your bank and to seek out other sources. After a downturn in operations causes the need for a larger facility, it is difficult to convince a banker that you are deserving of his umbrella — much better to ask before there are a few months of reduced profitability or even losses.
 

Key Performance Indicators

Take a few minutes to carefully assess the trends in your ratios and Key Performance Indicators (KPI) over the last two years. Consider how you can reverse any adverse trends and how you can improve those that are stable. It often helps to consider each of the factors in the calculation of the KPI, not just the result, as that is where the action step will need to be taken to yield the result. For example, when assessing the KPI of Days Sales Outstanding, examine the amounts outstanding from individual customers – say the twenty largest balances and any balance that is more than X days outstanding.

Update the KPI regularly and incorporate them into the ongoing reporting and management of the business. Include them in the budgeting process and report the KPI compared to budget.
Ensure that you investigate and take action on any KPI that changes from expectation. Challenge your management to improve on selected KPIs each month. For example, make next month the month in which you challenge your management to improve Days Sales Outstanding by 10% (and then illustrate the success by showing the effect on cash flow).

Ratios have the ability to reflect trends that are not easy to spot. If you track and graph your ratios on a monthly basis, with comparatives to previous periods and budget, you should be able to easily explain why a ratio has changed and what you propose to do to manage the situation, for better or worse.

For example, the Days Sales Outstanding and Days Inventory on hand are often effective warnings about cash flow problems and usually the first sign that more analysis and focus is required, so that management can develop a solution.
 

Disposal Of Non-core Assets

Consider every asset in your business as a candidate for disposal – no exceptions! There are often assets hidden in categories where the component part can be sold. For example, slow moving inventory, surplus or old equipment, waste, scrap, by-products, accounts receivable, business units, lines of business, product lines, etc.

If your challenge is caused by a downturn in business volumes, consider selling or sub-letting surplus space. One creative idea, in certain circumstances, is to “sell” your surplus capacity to a non-competing business that would need the same equipment. In other words, your business becomes a sub-contractor for them. A simple application is to use surplus space to provide storage for another business.

Take a page from retail businesses that sometimes have concessions in their premises, selling products that complement their lines of business. This can generate cash flow from the rental charge for the space, as well as draw additional traffic to your store. Is there a way to apply that to your business?

Links

• Identify and leverage your Key Performance Indicators
• The small business hard times survival guide (About.com)
• Five tips to help your small business survive tough times (MegaDox, Mar 2013)
• image courtesy of Paula Fisher

 
James Phillipson is a Chartered Accountant and a Principal of Mastermind Solutions Inc. with over twenty years experience in large and small businesses. He has provided financial counselling to his clients since 1996, often in the role of a Controller or Chief Financial Officer, for both public and private corporate clients. James has experience in financial roles in a wide variety of businesses and industries. This includes several large corporations and many medium-sized public and private companies. James can be contacted at james@mastermindsolutions.ca or 905-731-8255. You’ll find more details on the Experion website and LinkedIn.

Focus On The Important Not The Urgent

by James Phillipson

Many executives wish that they had an extra hour in every day. However, I would bet that most of them would get very little that is really important done with that extra hour. The time would often get consumed by the same type of urgent issues that laid waste to the rest of the day.
 

The Challenge

For many people, the challenge is to separate the strategically important things that will provide your business with transformative growth from the tactics that are perceived as urgent because they are time sensitive.

Ensure that you manage your time so that you allocate a significant amount to focus on the tasks that will grow your business. The urgent will always be there and will consume all of your time, if you permit.
 

Decide

It is up to you to manage your time to enable you to focus on what is relevant to your personal growth and to the business growth. Just like anything else, this does require management. It is not surprising that if you do not manage your priorities, they tend to absorb all of your time without focus on those that are really important.

If you do not have a list, you really need one. Read and implement the strategies here.

Links

• Why urgent is not a priority (Inc, Jan 2012)
• Eisenhower's urgent versus important (Brilliant Time Management, Aug 2010)
• Important vs urgent: 5 ways to focus on what really matters (Pick The Brain, Apr 2008)
• Covey’s time management matrix illustrated with comics (Sid Savara)
• Do you delegate or outsource the wrong things? (Marketing Actuary, Feb 2012)
• From bucket list to balk-it list (Riscario Insider, Apr 2012)
• image courtesy of Lijuan Guo

James Phillipson is a Chartered Accountant and a Principal of Mastermind Solutions Inc. with over twenty years experience in large and small businesses. He has provided financial counselling to his clients since 1996, often in the role of a Controller or Chief Financial Officer, for both public and private corporate clients. James has experience in financial roles in a wide variety of businesses and industries. This includes several large corporations and many medium-sized public and private companies. James can be contacted at james@mastermindsolutions.ca or 905-731-8255. You’ll find more details on the Experion website and LinkedIn.

Ask More Questions

by Billy Anderson

Bad leaders have all the answers. Great leaders do not.

We live in a world where management is expected to have all the answers, all the time. If an employee comes to you with a question you probably feel you should give an answer immediately (God forbid the “boss” doesn’t know something). Why do we do this? Because admitting we don’t know something means showing vulnerability, which many people assume is a weakness.

If that’s you, you make up the majority of management who underutilizes their team’s potential. As a leader, you will get more from your team when you ask more questions and give fewer answers. Asking them questions leverages their skills while showing them respect, and respect motivates the right people more than anything.
 

Try It

Next time an employee comes to you saying, “I’m not sure what to do about this”, try responding with “What do you want to do about it?” Chances are they’ll be taken off guard the first time, but they’ll get used to using their brain more and they will come to you less often with challenges they realize they can sort out on their own. They will then feel empowered, and empowerment fuels creativity and hard work more than green beer fuels St Paddy’s Day.
 

Goals

Now let’s look at your organizational goals. Every organization (and individual) needs goals: they provide direction, focus, and a strategic filter for decision-making. However, goals and guesswork both start with the same letter for a reason: goals are educated guesses.

We set goals based on what we know about the company, the competition and the market as it stands right now. But all that will change over time. If you follow your five-year strategic plan to the letter for the entire five years, you’ll go out of business. You set goals and targets in order to provide direction, but you have to accept they might change.
 

Next

Once you have your goals and strategy, you need to determine how often you will revisit them to see if they still apply. Put the review dates in the calendar. At this point you’ve figured out what you need to do to get there.

Now you can focus on who you need to be as an organization. Who are your employees being when they’re at their best? This will link to your organizational Values because your company will perform at its best when living true to its Values and Mission (assuming they were created properly in the first place, which most aren’t).

So try not knowing. Ask your employees more questions more often. Have the courage to know when a plan no longer works and needs to be revised. Have the guts to admit you don’t know and follow with “…but I’m confident we’ll figure it out”. That will gain the respect of your team and encourage them to do more.
 

Links

• image courtesy of Paul Moore

Billy Anderson is a Courage Coach & Speaker, and founder of Made You Think Coaching. He helps people get the life they want, because once they have that they perform like superstars.You’ll find Billy’s profile on the Experion website and LinkedIn.

Reasons To Get A Mentor

by Cheryl Crumb

What makes successful people successful? Sure, they’re likely bright. They might have advanced education. Maybe they were even lucky. There’s another hugely important ingredient to add to the mix.

Think about it … what do the following successful people have in common: Sir Richard Branson, Alexander the Great, Oliver Stone, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and David Beckham?

They all had mentors … experienced people who thought, “You are worth my time and effort; I can offer you ways to expand your horizons and increase the likelihood that you will achieve success”.
The Chinese ancients had a proverb:

“A single conversation across the table with a wise man is worth a month’s study of books”.

Albeit politically incorrect and gender dismissive, this belief was echoed by Dr. Beverley Kay in her recent book “Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go” when she said,

“Behind every successful person there is one elementary truth: somewhere, somehow, someone cared about their growth and development. This person was their mentor”.

Enlightened organizations are realizing the truth behind these statements and are orchestrating formal mentoring programs as part of their knowledge management and succession management strategies. Find a wise and experienced individual and team her/him up with an emerging leader.
 

Why A Mentor Matters

Why do you want to have a mentor? Look at this laundry list and select what appeals to you:

• Offer you experienced guidance and support
• Further your professional development
• Share the pros and cons of various career paths
• Offer new and different perspectives
• Be a sounding board to test your ideas and plans
• Expand your personal network
• Provide you constructive feedback on your developmental areas

Boiled down, a mentor’s role is to help you become a better observer of yourself and your blind spots. That let’s you take new actions you didn’t have the knowledge, perspective or courage to take previously.

From a more personal level, a mentor is there to:

• Be someone you can confide in during your darkest hours
• Help you to get back up when you crash
• Help you to accept changes or change what you can’t accept
• Rebalance yourself
• Find your motivation when it’s temporarily lost
• Help you to think outside your box
• Introduce you to contacts
• Step out of your comfort zone

 

Finding A Mentor

But what if your organization isn’t enlightened? What if you’re on your own with no company resources behind you? Take charge and find a mentor!

Keep your eye open for people you respect … people who have enjoyed the “thrill of victory and the agony of defeat” as ABC’s Wide World of Sports proclaimed decades ago. Since wisdom isn’t gained easily, learning includes spectacular failures! Be bold and ask an individual if they would be willing to be your mentor, that you would be honoured to learn from them.
 

Why Mentors Mentor

Why might mentors willingly invest themselves in you? Past mentors have told me

• mentoring renews their enthusiasm
• they enjoy the opportunity to share expertise
• mentoring enhances their skills in coaching
• mentoring allows them to practice a more personal style of leadership
• mentoring enhances their generational awareness.

 

How To Be A Mentee

Being a mentee isn’t about sitting at the feet of your mentor and waiting for her/him to pontificate brilliance. Instead, actively take ownership, identify your initial learning goals, use your initiative to drive mentoring sessions, be open and coachable, seek feedback, accept criticism graciously, and ask questions.

Contrary to popular belief, the most effective mentoring relationships are ones in which the mentee is relatively proactive and the mentor is relatively passive. In other words … you as mentee need to be in charge!
 

The Process

The mentoring process begins with definition: together, define your boundaries, set your ground rules, clarify your objectives. Share perceptions you think others have of you, and what you see as your strengths and weaknesses. Be honest with your mentor and yourself. The second stage is identifying your developmental needs and priorities. The third stage is action: ask for insights, discuss options, set a plan, practice, do it, debrief.

Remember, mentoring should lead to change. It was Darwin who said,

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change”.

Mistakes are inevitable!
 

Get Started

Start by reflecting:

• What do you really want to be and do?
• What are you doing really well that is helping you get there?
• What are you not doing well that is preventing you from getting there?
• What are you willing to do differently tomorrow to meet those challenges?
• How can your mentor help?

Arrangements can be formal or informal. To formalize with your mentor, create a contract including your willingness to be coachable, the number of times you will connect monthly, how long your meetings will last, how you will deal with confidentiality, and how you will periodically assess the value to both of you.

Mentoring is a science and an art. And don’t despair if The Most Respected Individual You Know is 4,000 km away … phone mentoring can be very powerful!

Find a mentor. Be a mentor. Buy the T-shirt!

Links

• Why a private mentor matters (and how to get one for free) (Marketing Actuary, Oct 2012)
• Every woman should have a mentor at work (Business Insider, Dev 2012)
• Why you need a mentor (OPEN Forum, Jan 2012)
• Why you need a mentor (BusinessWeek, Feb 2007)
• 10 good reasons for having a mentor (CIO Update, Nov 2006)
• image courtesy of Studio CI Art

 
Cheryl Crumb helps you get customers for keeps. She is an ISO 9000 accredited trainer, coach, transition consultant and facilitator who designs training programs to fit specific corporate needs. You’ll find more details on her website, the Experion website and LinkedIn.

Overcoming Mediocrity Consistently

by Jay Perry

I came across a quote from Jim Collins, best known as the author of “Good to Great”.  He states:

“The signature of mediocrity is not an unwillingness to change. The signature of mediocrity is chronic inconsistency.”

In every business I have worked with I find this to be true.  Some things get done well one time and then not as well another time.  A case in point is a client company where we had instituted a scheduling program to better control work flow for their production.  It was off and running well two months prior.  I arrived for a follow-up visit to find that they were using the system only 50% to 60% of the time.  In other words, inconsistently.  What were the results?  Chaos!

Diagnostics

I also see inconsistency and mediocrity in diagnostics.  When done properly, there is a smooth production flow.  Then someone has a “better idea” — usually to go back to what they used to do — and the everything falls off the rails again.

The true enemy of greatness in business is this inconsistency in performance.  What causes that inconsistency?  Myriad reasons but one of the most common is complacency or satisfaction with the status quo.  That is fear.  People are afraid to make a full commitment to a new way of being.  They have reached a certain level of comfort and go into “preserve mode” which means let’s not get too far from the average way of doing things.

Great Leaders

That is where the call for great leaders comes in.  Without a great leader who is willing to look at bold ideas and then present them in a safe way that the followers can support the new initiatives, nothing will get done.

The followers will not do proceed on their own.  Not because they do not want the benefits of a better way but because they cannot connect the dots between their current position and where they potentially could be.
In leadership the job entails more than looking at new ideas.  You must make it OK for people to accept the changes necessary to affect improvement.  Followers are willing to change if shown an acceptable way to do so.

Accountability

What follows next is the need to root out the inconsistency that will creep back into people’s behaviors. Holding people accountable for the promises they make in implementing new ways is one of the most important things a leader has to do.  A leader often figures that everyone else can see the same benefits that they see. To the leader it is a “no-brainer” that we should do this and everyone will support it.  That’s a mistake as others do not see things exactly as we do.  Accept that truth and make your life easier.

Many leaders also do not see themselves as helpers.  They like to think of themselves in a more romantic fashion, riding the great steed, leading the army into victory, always looking forward.  Like the old saying says “Get off your high horse.”  Your job is to constantly help others do their job better today than they did it yesterday.  Once that mindset is firmly entrenched in your being and your behavior shows it.

Links

• 15 lessons from the 2012 Global Leadership Summit
• image courtesy of puravida

Improve the processes and you change the culture. Ally Business Coaching helps progressive companies manage both aspects of these kinds of transformations. Leadership is developed in people, not trained. With over 20 years of experience in developing leaders through a coaching style, Jay brings quick, effective and permanent improvements to clients all over North America. Here are the complete services. You’ll find more about Jay on the Experion website and LinkedIn.

Identify And Leverage Your Key Performance Indicators

by James Phillipson

Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are quantifiable measurements that reflect the critical success factors of an organization. They will differ depending on the nature of the business and its priorities.

Some KPIs should focus on short-term priorities and others on long-term strategic issues. So a typical business would have both sales for the current month and for the year-to-date period in its KPIs.

The Key Performance Indicators selected must

1. reflect the organization's goals
2. be key to its success
3. be measurable

The definitions of what they are and how they are measured do not change often.

Start With Financial Indicators

If a Key Performance Indicator is going to be of any value, there must be a way to accurately define and measure it. As a result, many businesses start with financial indicators that are based on the accounting records. Financial KPIs can include metrics based on both balance sheet accounts and earnings accounts. For example, a bank balance or days sales outstanding are very common indicators based on balance sheet accounts. On the other hand, where statistical data is maintained they are appropriate to be a KPI (e.g. volume of product manufactured, number of orders received, headcount, etc).

Update the KPIs regularly and incorporate them into the ongoing reporting and management of the business. Include them in the budgeting process and report the KPI compared to budget and compared to prior periods.

Ensure that you investigate and take action on any KPI that changes from expectation. Challenge your management to improve on selected KPIs each month. For example, next month challenge them to improve days sales outstanding by 10% (and then illustrate the success by showing the affect on cash flow).

Develop A Dashboard

In addition to monthly tracking, many businesses, develop a “dashboard” or weekly snapshot to monitor the status of the identified KPIs for the business. There are software tools that facilitate this. For most businesses this is a standard way for all those with access to the dashboard to see the status of the KPIs (Confidentiality usually limits the staff with access to some or all the indicators). Where the accounting system is an ERP system that is maintained in “real time”, it may be reasonable to maintain instant measures of the critical metrics that drive your business.

If you do not yet have a defined and agreed set of KPIs in your business, this is an area that your Controller (whatever their title) should be able to develop with input from management. It is not necessary to invest a significant amount in the reporting. If your ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system does not have a dashboard module, Excel be used and often is. If you have a weekly snapshot, this is a form of reporting of the critical data for the business and an alternative to the reporting of KPIs.

Links

• Image courtesy of Joy Fera

James Phillipson is a Chartered Accountant and a Principal of Mastermind Solutions Inc. with over twenty years experience in large and small businesses. He has provided financial counseling to his clients since 1996, often in the role of a Controller or Chief Financial Officer, for both public and private corporate clients. James has experience in financial roles in a wide variety of businesses and industries. This includes several large corporations and many medium-sized public and private companies. James can be contacted at james@mastermindsolutions.ca or 905-731-8255. You’ll find more details on the Experion website and LinkedIn.