A guide on a few basics
Introductory note Diagram- Business planning: areas for adjusting for effectiveness Business planning for effectiveness: Effective Management a. Quality control and outputs b. Day to day running costs c. Staff happiness & productivity Source list
This guide is put together by a member of the public and intended to serve as a simple guide and not as an official set of protocols.
Effective Business plan to ensure:
1. Effective management to ensure effective:
2. Quality control & outputs
3. Day to day running costs
a more effective business
4. Staff Happiness & productivity
Whether you are setting up a new business or revising an old one, it is important to consider areas where you can be more effective in your business plan. These areas could be: 1. Management: how can management ensure more effectiveness through their role? Through this you can ensure that other areas of your business are managed more effectively such as: a. Quality control & outputs: how can quality help you to be more effective? How can outputs be reconsidered in production costs such as: Time spent on output? Cost price spent on output? Labour needed for output as a whole? b. Day to day running costs: how can changing service providers, reviewing utilities setups and other day to day essentials needed for your business be reviewed or considered for making your business more effective? c. Staff happiness and productivity: how can staff be encouraged to produce better outputs? What sort of incentives are likely to make them more effective? By considering how you could be more effective in these areas or setting up different trials on how to go about implementing change for effectiveness, your business can be nurtured and adjusted to be more effective rather than just be a business that simply runs day to day with no real adjustments in effectiveness and therefore profit margins. Effective business planning can save you time, money and help your business make more for less.
Effective management is the most important area to focus on when trying to make a business more effective. According to Margaret Francis, [MSW, M.Phil, PGDCIM] on ‘Changing Minds’ Here are some things to keep note of to ensure effective management; an effective manager should have:
Creative Problem Solving Skills: 1. Describing and analysing a problem 2. Identifying causes of a problem 3. Developing creative options and choosing the best course of action, 4. Implementing and evaluating effective and efficiency of the decision. Communication Skills: 1. Listening skills 2. Presentation skills 3. Feedback Skills 4. Report writing skills. Image by: John Drake Flickr
Conflict Management Skills: 1. Identifying sources of conflict – functional and dysfunctional conflicts 2. Understanding personal style of conflict resolution 3. Choosing the best strategy for dealing with a conflict 4. Developing skills in promoting constructive conflicts in organization and teams.
Negotiation Skills: 1. Distinguishing distributive & integrative negotiations, position & principle negotiation 2. Identifying common mistakes in negotiation and ways to avoid them 3. Developing rational thinking in negotiation 4. Developing effective skills in negotiation that benefits all parties involved.
Self-Awareness and Improvement: 1. Understanding the concept of self-management 2. Evaluate the effectiveness of self-management 3. Developing creative and holistic thinking 4. Understanding the importance of emotions in works as well in self-development 5. Understand of self-motivation 6. Effectively managing self-learning and change. For more visit ChangingMinds.org
This can range from setting up an external observer in offices every so often or a professional in the field to check the quality of work that is being produced in service or product outputs. “Quality control is a process employed to ensure a certain level of quality in a product or service. It may include whatever actions a business deems necessary to provide for the control and verification of certain characteristics of a product or service. The basic goal of quality control is to ensure that the products, services, or processes provided meet specific requirements and are dependable, satisfactory, and fiscally sound.” Wise Geek As long as you as a manager or executive can ensure that day to day production is practising the theory of your effective business plan through quality control, you can guarantee that you are providing a product or service that customers will come back for. Output variables can be honed in on in terms of time –such as where something like staff training could ensure a quicker or more effective turnover rate- and cost price –such as finding better deals for essential components of outputs- could be reviewed for more effective solutions.
Image by: Artois Bibliothèques Flickr
Running costs will always be managed by a balancing act between necessity of business essentials and their availability, quality and price. Some areas can be reconsidered for effectiveness to save your business money from within the day to day running costs area of your budget: Communications: • Are you on the best communication network for the size and usage of your business? • Could your business qualify for a group communications set up such as email and online messaging services to ensure more effective communication? Utilities: • Check that your business energy provider is giving you the most for your money • Check that you are not wasting water or electricity over night or week-ends and for ways you can cut down on general utilities costs. Office supplies: • Are you ordering day to day essentials like printer fillers and paper in bulk to help you save money?
Image by: Images of Money Flickr
Keeping your staff happy is based on, according to Dominic Monkhouse for Service Obsession, a few but essential implementations on your part as a manager or executive: 1.
2.
3.
Make sure you are the right company for your employees. It is all very well recruiting individuals you consider to be perfect, but the feeling must be mutual. If your company is not right for them, your staff will remain dissatisfied and unproductive. Give your workforce a voice. Encouraging your employees to contribute their opinions and ideas to the business not only unveils brilliant ideas but ensures the “team” actually feels like one. You could give your staff a quota to suggest two business improvements per month. If the cost is less than £100, let them go ahead and make improvements for the greater good. It will never cost any more than this in goodwill or settlements. Make the workplace a positive space. Offices are the voluntary equivalent of a prison cell – sterile, cramped and claustrophobic environments in close quarters with people you may or may not enjoy sharing personal space with, never mind a conversation. Making your workspace more aesthetically agreeable improves employee productivity and efficiency.
Image by: tuppus Flickr
4. Small but effective perks. Pay rises are not always the best incentive for employees. Regular and thoughtful perks can be really effective. “Free Food” day on the last day of the month is quick and easy, beer o’clock on a Friday always welcomes the weekend in and free use of the mooring outside our office goes down well too. 5. When it’s not right, it’s just not right. Employers (not employees) are the cardinal sinners of failing to address the reality of working relationships. So introduce a weekly happy check – ask your employees to rate their happiness on a scale from one to three, and then speak to people if they are unhappy. It prevents problems escalating and lets your workforce know you care about their wellbeing. However, people are all different and sometimes, despite everyone’s best intentions, it just isn’t going to work. Employers convince themselves it might get better; trust me, it won’t. This year, businesses need to have an honest look at their teams – are they full of people you’d go to the pub with for a pint? If not, the fit isn’t right and these staff aren’t adding value in the right way to your customers. Take courage and confront the situation to do both sides a favour.
Image by: Sasha W Flickr
Image by: .reid. Flickr
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“A business of high principle generates greater drive and effectiveness because people know that they can do the right thing decisively and with confidence. “ Marvin Bower