Category Archives: Job Descriptions
On Business Restructuring
Business restructuring is the catch-all phrase used to describe the series of actions that a firm might take to re-organise its affairs following some management decision to change the course of the business. There are three views often discussed: from the legal perspective, from the finance perspective and from the human resources perspective. Taken alone, they all tend to adopt a hard approach. The lawyers talk of new legal arrangements for the firm and like the accountants they assume the firm is in difficulty. Both assume that if drastic restructuring action is not taken urgently then third perspective action will be inevitable – redundancy following liquidation, merger or buy-out. In every case it’s a boom time for the professional services firms.
But business restructuring is not about the stuff of films. It’s about the normal adjustment that a firm makes to optimise its approach to the market. Continue reading →
Innovation and the Art of Coffee Making
Innovation in all firms is essential. It allows the firm to maintain competitive advantage by evolving its products and services to better meet customer needs and grow market share. People innovate. So how does an SME principal achieve an environment of continuous innovation by staff to assure his or her firm’s future? This blog addresses the attributes needed to assure innovation. It starts by setting out a model for innovation, using the coffee-making baristas improving espresso to espresso’ at Costa as an example. It discusses planned innovation versus spontaneous innovation. And it ends by laying out the six Creative Enablers needed in all firms. Continue reading →
Frankfurt Airport, Fish-hooks and Job Design
Imagine the scene. Frankfurt airport was snowbound and closed all Thursday evening. It was Friday afternoon. Runways had just been cleared of snow. Flights had resumed at 2:00pm. The queues were huge. Two hundred people queued for the security check. One German security guy hurled bags and coats on the belt. Two security operatives patted down when everyone invariably failed the magnetic screen. And one lone guy manned the X-Ray machine. He progressively failed the bags and selected well over half for further analysis. He left his post by the X-Ray machine and opened each bag. He selected shoes, PCs and handbags and marched the owners to the swab analyser 15 metres away to spend three minutes with each passenger to clear them. That done, he wandered back his X-Ray machine to resume scanning. And all while his colleagues and two hundred passengers waited.
So HOW did this mess happen? How was it that two hundred passengers swore and gnashed teeth? It happened because the manager watching this fiasco did not understand the basics of job design. This short blog shows how an SME manager can analyse his or her organisation. It shows how the manager can optimise the various jobs so that competences are balanced across teams. That done the horrendous Frankfurt inefficiency can be avoided.
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On Job Descriptions
Job descriptions have three clear purposes in the firm: to guide recruitment (in concert with a Person Profile), give guidance to the principal on the relative value of that job against another, to guide the job holder should that ever be needed. Since there are such clear-cut purposes, it will come as no surprise that there is a very specific way of writing a Job Description such that these needs are satisfied.
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On ISO9001: Systematising the Firm
ISO9001 is the quality standard. Surely that means that it is the preserve of the quality manager in a firm? How then can it be anything to do with people? And more importantly how can it have anything to do with people management or HR?
ISO9001 calls for the firm to be systematised. This short blog discusses the role of systems in business, arguing that systems are important to job satisfaction and to staff flourishing. If achieved in the right way both lead to enhanced profits.
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Moving mountains: re-skilling the firm Part I
What does a firm do when the principal realises that the market has changed and his firm is not now best placed to meet the customer’s needs? What does a firm do to sustain competitive advantage through its people when those people as a whole are not up to par?
These are issues that face many firms today. Many were oriented and organised to meet the needs of an old paradigm, an old market state that was more tolerant of shortcomings and less fast-moving. In many segments, customers demand more service, higher reliability and more immediate response. It prompts some principals to lament that their people are no longer up there with the best. But what does a principal do?
