Tag Archives: job design
Turnover down and profits squeezed? Innovate!
We frequently hear the statistic that few of the leading firms from the post-war era are still around today. We even hear that few firms make it beyond ten years. Why is that? Is it that the market changed and the firms didn’t? Or that competitors just became better at serving customers? Or is it that the market was still there and the firms unfortunately got worse at meeting the client’s needs? Somehow the latter is seriously counter-intuitive. The former two are more likely. We have become accustomed to market change but somehow less able to do something about it. So is demise inevitable? Is it really only a matter of time before some disruptive technology or some shift in needs topples all firms?
This paper offers a simple solution – innovation. It addresses how SME principals should organise their firm to stimulate innovation. And it addresses the most critical of issues: how people can be encouraged, indeed committed, to innovation to ensure the lifeblood of the firm. Continue reading →
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 →
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 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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