Hiring Staff: When and Who
Learn about hiring staff, the decision about when to hire your next member of staff and what positions to consider first. This article is aimed, primarily, at owners hiring their first few staff members. But additionally, it suggests a thought process and habits that will be useful even when your small business becomes larger. Yellow Belt […]
Why Multitasking is Not Your Friend
Multitasking means doing several things at once. Individuals and leaders sometimes think this is a good thing because you are “busy”. However, it can be clearly demonstrated that multitasking is an inefficient process that can contribute to waste in any business. Learn more about the problems with multitasking and their solutions. Yellow Belt Table of Contents […]
SM2.9 80/20 Staffing
Labour costs are typically 50-70% of your operating costs so anything you can do to improve labour productivity is a good thing. The 80/20 Rule can be applied to the issues around staffing so that your business can operate as effectively as possible. Yellow Belt
How to Build Risk Management Systems
Everything a business does is risky to some extent. It’s one of the things business people have to live with on a continual basis and the willingness to shoulder more risk is one of the things that separates business owners from employees. Learn how to build Risk Management Systems in this article. Blue Belt You should […]
How to Double Your Personal Productivity in Under Two Weeks
There just never seems to be enough time in the life of a manager toget all the things queued up in front of you done. Do you know that feeling? It doesn’t have to be like that though. Two simple skills can make you up to 16 times more productive! Read on to see how you […]
How the Plan/Do/Check/Act (PDCA) Cycle Builds Important Routines
The business world is full of uncertainty. Many managers cross their fingers, build the planned addition to their business in its entirety, or their start-up, then launch it and pray. The most common outcome from this approach is – failure or, at best, mediocre success. Starting with the auto industry and then moving to the start-up industry, smart managers are dramatically reducing their risk by doing a series of experiments that let them “fail fast” and cheaply if their idea does not have legs. This approach substantially speeds up the migration to a profitable new avenue for the business. Learn the process of the PDCA Cycle This is a Yellow Belt (Introductory) article.
Hiring First Managers
This article discusses hiring your business’s first managers and supervisors.This typically starts to happen in what we have called the Small Business (5-19 Staff) phase of your business growth journey. We begin with refreshing your mind on some of our other discussions on the affordability, timing and budgeting for staff. Then we look at some […]
Personal Development Tip bits
Remember the old saying “physician, heal thy self”. It means that before a doctor works on others, they should get their own life and health together. The same thing applies to working on your business. You are going to be the ‘main mover and shaker’ in your business so, just like playing a musical instrument, your business is only going to be as good as you are. Advancing your personal development is a key factor. Yellow Belt