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A Business Case for Servant Leadership Principles

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A Business Case for Servant Leadership Principles

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Many managers, on getting promoted or hired into their leadership position, believe it’s their time to shine. They’ve risen through the ranks, the spotlight is on them and they may get to have their voice carry more weight than has been the case before. It’s an exciting step in their career progression, one that they may have striven toward for years.  

While it’s true that a new leadership position typically means higher responsibility and greater decision-making power, it doesn’t set a leader up for success to think the light should shine on them alone. The better leadership philosophy is not to be the person standing in the spotlight; rather, choose to be a servant leader, the one holding the spotlight and shining it on your team. 

Think to your own career — who have been the bosses you appreciated the most or who were the best at motivating your team to perform at its highest possible level? I imagine it was the ones who viewed themselves as holding a position of trust rather than a position of authority. That’s not to say that they abdicated the responsibility of their role; instead, they recognized that their success was ultimately tied to the success of their team and the best way for them to do well was to empower their direct reports.  

Becoming a Servant Leader 

A servant leader is someone who seeks to elevate those in their charge, producing results by supporting the development of the people they lead. If you want to be a great leader, commit to serving your employees: develop their skills and nurture their career growth. 

If your team is consistently learning and growing, it will get noticed — by your peers and by your superiors, as well as your own team. Fostering a culture on your team of continuous improvement will drive results beyond just the company’s balance sheet. It will also pay off in employee engagement and job satisfaction, retention, and even hiring.  

You might fear that investing in the growth of your employees is just asking for them to leave for a more challenging job. But while this is a realistic fear, it rarely plays out like that. 

When you develop engaged employees, you’ll find they are more present and productive — and engaged employees will certainly desire to advance in their careers, whether in your company or a different one. But if you want loyal employees who will go far above and beyond for you in their role, you must offer something in return. That “something” is assistance in getting where they want to go, realizing their career dreams. Even if the place your employees want to go is not necessarily what you would choose, make your goal to be the kind of leader who wants only the best for those who willingly follow. 

Three Steps to Success 

Easier said than done? Here’s are three simple steps you can take to empower your employees to thrive. 

1. Build a Culture: Your organization absolutely must have a culture of engagement. That requires a strong vision, ways for your employees to connect with that vision, and frequent opportunities for your employees to feel like they matter — to the organization, to the team and to you, their manager. The culture you build directly impacts your employees’ ability to thrive. 

2. Make a Connection: Draw a clear line between your employees’ work and the purpose and vision of your organization. A disconnect between people and purpose results in employees who don’t feel they don’t have a role in the larger picture. But when the connection is recognized, employees will be driven to complete tasks — even the more mundane tasks — as they think about how and where they can grow with the company. 

3. Bring It All Together: When you can clearly articulate each employee’s role in achieving the company vision, they will be more fully invested in the organization’s success. Look for ways to unite your team, whether through group training, team-building activities or something else altogether. Individually motivated workers who can enjoy working together collaboratively will drive your team to greater achievement. 

A manager must wear multiple hats, and it can be hard to balance the various responsibilities you bear. It’s up to you to get results from your team, to meet the goals you set and the goals that are set by your own bosses. But even so, remember that it’s not all about you. Don’t look at your team as a group of people who answer to you; rather, see yourself as the support system needed to help your team reach its potential. When you do, you’ll make an impact that goes far beyond the bottom line.

This post originally appeared here. Republished with permission. 

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Archives, Commentary, Global Trade Daily

Technology Gives Remote Workers A Way To Communicate, But Something Is Missing

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Ready for that first one-on-one chat with your boss in 2021?

If you’re like many employees across the country, you may have begun the new year the same way you ended the old one – communicating via Zoom, Google Chat, email, text messages or some other venue where you and the other person were physically apart.

That might work all right for a quick exchange of basic information. But it’s not the best way to handle more complicated information or to build esprit de corps within a team, says Clint Padgett (www.clintonmpadgett.com), president and CEO of Project Success Inc. and the ForbesBooks author of How Teams Triumph: Managing By Commitment.

“One of the fundamental components to successful teamwork is communication,” Padgett says. “If you can’t talk to your team, you can’t be successful. And the key to developing communication is face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball conversation. That’s how you pass along complex information and build relationships.”

But what’s ideal and what’s reality don’t always match up. In 2020, many office workers saw less and less of each other in person as the pandemic forced them to work remotely, and that trend could pick up steam rather than fizzle out even when the pandemic is over, according to a Pew Research Center survey.

Pew surveyed people whose work responsibilities could be done from home. Prior to the pandemic, just 20 percent had worked remotely all or part of the time. Now, 71 percent of those workers are doing their job from home all or most of the time. And more than half – 54 percent – say that if given a choice they would want to keep working from home even after the pandemic.

Padgett winces at the idea of remote work as a long-term solution, but says it’s incumbent on managers and employees to find ways to make it work. One way is to understand the communication limitations that must be overcome.

“The way we communicate remotely – with email, text messages, Zoom calls – doesn’t replace face-to-face meetings and the relationships you develop with people when you can sit down in the same room and have a conversation,” he says. “Communication and conversation are not the same thing.”

Email and text messages are a series of one-way communications, not dialogue, he says. Yes, there can be back and forth, but not in the same way as an in-person conversation. And remote work doesn’t allow those breakroom chats where team members build their relationships and their rapport.

At least for now, though, remote work is a reality, so Padgett offers a few tips and some cautionary advice:

Work to overcome technology’s communications limits. Technology is great for a lot of things, but when you communicate with emojis or by using the fewest words possible, your message can be unclear, Padgett says. “If I ask you a question by email or text, and your response is a smiley-face emoji, that could mean any number of things,” he says. “Be honest, how many times have you misinterpreted the tone of an email or a static document?” Skip the emojis in workplace communications and strive to make your communications as clear as possible. Put yourself in the other person’s place. If you received this text or email, would you understand the context without more explanation?

Set up clear, two-way communications. The only way to manage a project effectively is to develop the project around clear two-way conversations, Padgett says. “One-way communications should only be used for simple, clear questions that have yes/no answers or are used to piggyback on conversations,” he says. “In other words, it’s okay to text or email questions before a conversation takes place or for follow-up responses afterward. Conversations need not be the only form of communication, but they are the most important by far.” While video chats have their own limitations, at least they provide an opportunity to engage in that needed dialogue.

Appreciate technology; value people. Many managers (and others in an organization) may approach communication from a technical standpoint because they want software to be the answer, Padgett says. “But it isn’t the answer, it’s a tool,” he says. “Technically, communications on a project could happen electronically, but if you choose technology over people, your project won’t be successful. While your communications will be fast, you’ll sacrifice quality, clarity, accountability, and, ultimately, success.”

“Conversations force clarity that you don’t get with other forms of communication,” Padgett says.“For nearly a year, businesses have tried to duplicate those face-to-face conversations through Zoom or Google Chat, and that will continue for the foreseeable future. We all need to devote serious effort to making it work. But at the same time, the question we will continue to grapple with is this: Is a conversation conducted on a screen as meaningful and productive as an in-person conversation?”

______________________________________________________________

Clint Padgett (www.clintonmpadgett.com), the ForbesBooks author of How Teams Triumph: Managing By Commitment, is the president and CEO of Project Success Inc., a project management company. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from The Georgia Institute of Technology and an MBA from The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.

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How Younger Workers Can Mentor Older Ones And Move Companies Forward

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Mentoring usually refers to a manager, executive, or experienced employee guiding a younger person in the workplace, helping them acquire knowledge and new skills that foster professional growth.

But with the expanding role of technology in today’s rapidly evolving business climate, a role reversal sometimes takes place – reverse mentorship. That is, older employees are paired with younger ones who teach them about technology – a strong suit for millennials and Gen Z workers, generations who grew up with technology.

Reverse mentoring can be a plus for businesses in bridging generation gaps and knowledge gaps, and also a lifeline for older workers who otherwise might get phased out, says Rod Robertson, Managing Partner of Briggs Capital (www.briggscapital.com), international entrepreneur, and author of Winning at Entrepreneurship: Insider’s Tips on Buying, Building, and Selling Your Own Business.

“The older people better pay attention to these young people and find a mentor so they can teach them about technology,” Robertson says. “Recent studies have shown that the COVID-19 pandemic has greatly accelerated the shift to e-commerce and e-learning.

“The people who don’t climb aboard the tech train will be left behind in the post-pandemic shakeout. A lack of tech knowledge is an excuse for organizations to cut the more expensive, older people and bring in the younger talent. These young tech execs should latch onto a floundering management exec and lead them to the new world order before they become obsolete. In return, young people get access to years of wisdom, and companies can become more cohesive and efficient in the whole reverse mentorship process.”

Robertson offers these tips on how to implement reverse mentoring successfully:

Focus on a business need. What is the mentee learning the technology for? “Reverse mentorships are more successful when they focus on a broader business need,” Robertson says. “For example, a tech-savvy employee could mentor on how to use social media to generate more sales leads. The company doesn’t benefit unless the mentee learns how to develop and use new skills in concert with business strategy.”

Find partners who are a sensible fit. “An ideal mentor has knowledge or skills that you need and is willing to build a relationship with you,” Robertson says. “But can that person teach it in a way that’s fairly easy to understand? Do they listen or talk over you? You need substantive engagement and a lot of question-and-answer time without added tension.”

Be open-minded and respectful. Reverse mentoring empowers young leaders, but at the same time they can learn from and value the older group’s decades of experience. “Without mutual respect and openness it won’t work,” Robertson says. “The mentee has to be willing to go outside their comfort zone. And the mentor should respect that. Both should be tactful and patient.”

Set clear goals and expectations. “Discuss expectations upfront,” Robertson says. “Make sure you’re both committed to the process and goals are aligned. Neither of you should be too busy to meet at least once weekly. Otherwise a real teaching-learning relationship isn’t formed and too much falls through the cracks.”

Track progress. Robertson says organizations should formalize these reverse mentorship relationships and make them quantifiable. “A mentorship relationship falls short if progress isn’t tangibly measured in different stages,” Robertson says. “If progress isn’t where it needs to be, discuss new ways to achieve goals. Both the mentor and the mentee can determine where the gaps are and how to close them.

“Technology has blown the roof off the traditional corporate thinking of top-down learning,” Robertson says. “Reverse mentoring removes barriers in today’s multi-generational workforce, enhances careers, and in some cases of the oldest workers, it can extend them.”

________________________________________________________________

Rod Robertson (www.briggscapital.com) is an international entrepreneur and author of Winning at Entrepreneurship: Insider’s Tips on Buying, Building, and Selling Your Own Business. Robertson is the owner of Briggs Capital, a boutique international investment bank. He has conducted business in over 15 countries while focusing on developing small-to-medium-sized businesses and taking them to market worldwide. Robertson’s 20-plus-year career in transaction experience and entrepreneurship includes guest lecturing around the globe at institutions such as Harvard Business School and other top-flight MBA schools as well as business forums and news outlets worldwide. He sits on numerous boards, guiding firms to streamline operations and make businesses more profitable before selling.

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The Fallacy of Move Fast and Break Things

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Ever since Mark Zuckerburg uttered the phrase “move fast and break things,” it has become the motto of many development teams. Companies wanting to be the next unicorn decided this must be the way to operate. The race was on to release more, ship faster, never stop. If moving slowly and methodically wasn’t working, doing more had to be the key to success.

These companies would cherry-pick statistics from reports like the Accelerate: State of DevOps Report. The 2019 report showed elite companies have 46x more frequent code deployments than low-performing teams and a 2,555x faster lead time to move from code commit to deploy to support their initiatives to move faster.

The problem is moving fast doesn’t work across industries or for all teams. And to effectively move fast, you need processes in place to support the velocity. The consequences of moving too fast and not being able to fix things when they break are high.

How we got here

What has gotten us to the point where we are moving too fast? In short, we have. How do you feel when it takes months or a week for a PR to be resolved compared to hours or days?  As consumers and end-users of software, our expectations are continually rising. We have to ship quickly because that is what we as consumers expect. As customers, we are pushing companies, which in turn pushes their employees to meet the increasing expectations.

What are the consequences when you try to move fast and not just break things, but fail?

-It takes longer to resolve incidents

-You lose customer confidence and sales

-Employees burnout and you have a high turnover rate

Let’s go back to the stats from the Accelerate: State of DevOps Report. Yes, elite teams ship faster. But, their changes are 1/7 as likely to fail and they recover from incidents 2,604x faster than low-performing teams. It’s not just about moving fast and breaking things; it is about having the right systems and processes in place to support this way of working.

Setting yourself up for success

You need two things to effectively move fast: a culture of psychological safety and smart investments in tooling. Employees need to feel empowered to speak up if things are moving too fast, if they are concerned about why a feature is being built, and to identify gaps in the processes. They need to feel they won’t be blamed when something breaks. Building this requires empathy, open communication, and teamwork.  This psychological safety is the foundation of being able to move quickly and quickly recover when things break.

Next up is selecting the right tooling and processes. Invest in tools that make things easier. Tools should be useful, usable, and change the underlying problems, not create more.

Think about the tools in place to quickly resolve incidents when something fails.

-Observability and monitoring tools to identify and notify when things go wrong

-Incident management tools to route, track, and escalate issues

-Feature management tools to enable circuit breakers and load shedding to turn off features quickly.

The culture and tools are part of the equation; the final piece is having the right processes in place to effectively use the tools and support the people.

What are some processes you can implement to enable safety at speed?

-Schedule chaos days to understand how things break and know how to fix them

-Release features via targeted rollouts, betas, or canary launches

-Test code in production without exposing it to all users

-Configure operational feature flags to dynamically change logging levels when an incident occurs

-Run experiments to gather feedback and ensure features are moving in the right direction before a release

You should attempt to move fast, you should try to break things—but only when you have the right protections and processes in place. Using a combination of the right tools and processes, you can deliver more value faster without sacrificing quality or your employees’ health.

______________________________________________________________

Dawn Parzych is a developer advocate at LaunchDarkly, the feature management platform that software teams use to build better software, faster with less risk. Development teams use feature management as a best practice to separate code deployments from feature releases. With LaunchDarkly teams control their entire feature lifecycles from concept to launch to value. Learn more at https://launchdarkly.com.

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Is Your ‘Inner Critic’ Undermining Your Career? 5 Ways To Boost Your Confidence.

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The workplace, like the playing field in sports, is packed with competition — often against oneself. It demands being at your best, reaching and exceeding goals, working hard to master all aspects of a position, and proving you’re capable of taking on more.

Someone might have all the requisite skills to succeed, but they also might become their own biggest obstacle when self-criticism gets in the way, corporate observers say. Confidence becomes a problem when difficult experiences at work, such as making mistakes or being passed over for an opportunity, cause us to question ourselves and create negative thoughts.

To produce positive thoughts and smooth the path toward success, one needs to create a mindset based on processes that are purposeful, says Grant Parr (www.gameperformance.com), a mental sports performance coach and author of The Next One Up Mindset: How To Prepare For The Unknown.

“The mind can get lonely and focus on negative things,” says Parr. “We risk giving our attention to thoughts that can eat away at us, destroy our confidence, and take us out of our rhythm.

“We begin to listen to a cartoon version of the devil who sits on one shoulder and whispers in our ear. So we need to develop ways to listen to that other voice within us, that angel on the opposite shoulder, to quiet the inner critic.”

Parr suggests a five-step process to develop a more positive mindset and boost your confidence in the workplace:

Focus on winning in the present. Dwelling on past mistakes or worrying about what comes next can create self-doubt. Staying present is key and requires resiliency, which leans on past training and the skills that led to achievements. Parr likens a resilient worker with athletes such as a placekicker, who shakes off a missed field goal and comes back to make the game-winner. “The workplace setting doesn’t wait for you to get over things,” Parr says. “And rather than fearing making more mistakes, you must ask yourself, ‘What’s important now?’ To be the best you can be in the current moment, you have to focus all of your energy on the present and embrace it.”

Breathe to relax and refocus. “Refocusing always starts with your breath,” Parr says. “It casts out distractions and allows you to be yourself. Focusing on your breathing reminds you that this is something you can control, and in turn you can control your thoughts. Ultimately, you’re training your subconscious mind how to use breath to settle you.”

Meditate. “Meditation builds off your controlled, sustained breathing,” Parr says, “and it becomes a practice to develop clarity and create a calm space in the mind. Meditation brings control and harnesses much of the untapped power of the mind. It aligns your mind, body, and spirit.”

Visualize. To reach peak performance, Parr says, people must be able to see themselves performing well. “The more precisely you can see yourself in action, the more you are able to adjust and control that image, change its details, and guide its outcome,” Parr says. “Visualization also entails tapping into an emotion, feeling the confidence of the moment that you see yourself making happen.”

Engage in self-talk. “Learn to become your own best motivator,” Parr says. “You can do this through the power of positive language directed at the self. We want to develop a language that creates purposeful optimism. Find specific language that can give voice to your feelings and enhance your internal drive.”

“Training the mind to generate confidence, qualm fear and spark joy empowers someone to be better than their negative side thought they could be,” Parr says.

____________________________________________________________

Grant Parr (www.gameperformance.com) is a mental sports performance coach and the author of The Next One Up Mindset: How To Prepare For The Unknown. Parr owns and runs GAMEFACE PERFORMANCE, a consulting firm that enhances mental skills for athletes and coaches. A recruiter and sales leader in the corporate world for 17 years, he now works with a wide variety of athletes including Olympians, professionals, collegians and high school athletes. His podcast, 90% Mental, provides a window into a broad range of athletes’ and coaches’ mental games and shares their insights around mental performance.

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How to Measure Your Organizational Culture and Values

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The importance of a strong corporate culture and value is undeniable. Undoubtedly, cultivating corporate culture and values takes time, but the result is so much worth it.

Culture IQ researched the results from different companies with a strong organizational culture and values to find that:

-collaboration, work environment, and mission and value alignment are 20% higher at companies with strong cultures

-companies with established corporate cultures saw a 4 times increase in revenue growth

-if a company has appeared on The Best Place to Work list, its stock value increased by 75%

-companies that have strong employer brands have a 50% lower cost per hire

-82% of company leaders believe that culture is a potential competitive advantage

Of course, all corporate cultures are different, depending on how you want to organize your workers and which working environment you want to create. Organizational cultures and values even differ from one country to another.

In one of our recent articles we took a look at the current state of corporate culture in the U.S. While it is quite different from what other countries have as a norm for corporate culture, there is one prerequisite in all organizational culture cases that makes it strong – corporate culture analysis.

To do it, there are several methodologies that can help you take a look at your corporate culture and values.

BNS to Measure Positive and Potentially Limiting Values

BNS (Business Needs Scorecard) is one of the most precise methods to measure organizational values. This method is designed to identify and elaborate on the positive and potentially limiting values to outline the desired and not desired corporate values.

Myctt Values Centre recognizes BNS as a diagnostic tool in cultural value assessment that uses 6 sections to categorize positive and potentially limiting values:

-Finance – values that impact the growth of the company in terms of profits and financial performance.

-Fitness – values that describe productivity and the general performance of your employees.

-External relationships – values that affect your company’s relationship with outside players, including partners and customers.

-Evolution – values that impact creativity and innovation of your company as well as its growth in comparison to your competitors.

-Culture – values that influence communication and trust between the employees and corporate leaders.

-Contribution to society – the alignment of your corporate values with the values of society.

This method allows you to perform a comprehensive analysis of your corporate values, especially from the perspective of leadership and what it takes for you to observe these values as a leader.

OCAI Method to Measure Organizational Culture

Another issue is measuring the methods that dominate and dominate in your organizational culture, in other words – your active and passive values.

Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument or OCAI is a method that can help you do exactly that. It uses the so-called Competing Values Framework. “OCAI is a validated method of assessing organizational culture, actively used by over 10,000 companies. We’ve used it for several years, and it’s been one of the most precise ways to measure values”, says Claire Jefferson, an HR manager at Axonim, an electronic device service company.

This method uses a diagram, which helps you identify the direction that your organizational values work towards:

Image credit: OCAI-Online

As a result, you get an answer, which corporate culture dominates in your company, indicating the changes that need to be made to create the organizational culture you aspire to have.

Employee Surveys for Precise Engagement Rates

Who knows your organizational culture and values better than your employees?

Surveying employees is one of the most informative and precise ways to measure organizational culture. Besides, you actively engage your employees in creating your organizational culture.

One of the most common types of employee surveys is an employee satisfaction survey. This survey can take many different forms, but mostly aims at defining the following aspects of organizational culture:

-The position of your employees in the corporate culture – where your employees see their role in defining organizational culture.

-Motivation rate of your employees – helps you understand how much your employees support your corporate culture.

-Employee insights –what needs to be done and which values need to be adopted to help the employees fit in your organizational culture.

Here’s a great example of an employee satisfaction survey:

Image credit: Template.net

This survey can be done in many different forms. The ultimate goal, however, is to give your employees as many choices to answer the questions, possibly avoiding essay questions.

Over to You

The methods that we’ve mentioned above are aimed at assessing organizational culture from three different perspectives:

-a general analysis of your organizational values

-an analysis describing active and passive organizational values

-in comparison to the methods from above, which are used to analyze organizational culture and values from the leadership perspective, you can also take the perspective of your employees by doing employee satisfaction surveys

What is your approach to measuring your organizational culture and values?

__________________________________________________________________

Ryan is a passionate writer who likes sharing his thoughts and experience with the readers. Currently, he works as a content strategist at https://axonim.com. He likes everything related to traveling and new countries.

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Three Expense Policies You Should Consider Revisiting

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“Are you reallygoing to reject that expense report because of that?” We ask our customers this question all the time — and guess what, they usually say “Nope.” They’re just adhering to their company’s travel and expense (T&E) policy without really considering the context of the expense. Many T&E policies we’ve seen are outdated. More often than not, these policies were either put in place when the company only had a handful of employees traveling or they were based on industry standards that haven’t been revised in over a decade. With business travel on the rise, it isn’t just the overall reimbursement amount that has increased, but also an increased burden on employers to audit these expenses.

From our experience implementing our AI-powered expense audit solution for over 1,000 companies, we’ve identified three expense policies your company should seriously consider revisiting.

‍Don’t be too strict on meal spend

$10 limit for breakfast, $15 for lunch, and $25 for dinner – this is the standard policy most companies have around meal expenses, but how often do auditors truly follow this? It’s becoming increasingly common for auditors to approve expense reports that don’t stick to these strict guidelines, as long as employees don’t go over the overall daily limit of say, $100. We recommend setting an overall daily meal limit or per diem rather than a meal-based one. This change will ensure that your auditors are paying attention to the expense reports of employees whose behavior they actually want to address, rather than focusing on someone who spent $5 extra on lunch, for example.  

Give your employees more time

T&E policies usually require expenses to be submitted for reimbursement within 90 days of incurring the expense. Let’s say an employee submits a receipt that’s older than 90 days. It’s likely that this expense just slipped the employee’s mind or they just found it while cleaning out their suitcase. Are your auditors really going to go through the trouble of asking the employee why they didn’t submit the receipt earlier? Probably not. There are various reasons for delayed submission, but usually, the employee is given the benefit of the doubt. We recommend increasing the permitted expense age to 180 days to give employees more time to submit their expense reports and decrease any potential back-and-forth between employees and auditors.

‍It’s okay to enjoy a glass of wine once in a while

Sure, no one wants their employees getting drunk on the company dime, but it isn’t uncommon for employees to sip a glass of wine at dinner – especially when they are traveling on business, away from their families, and eating all by themselves in the hotel lobby. Okay, I didn’t mean to paint such a dampening picture, but it’s quite true! Expecting companies to pay for a drink used to be a complete no-no in the business world, but today, companies are more flexible about alcohol. So, either allow it up to a certain dollar amount, say $100, or track an employee’s behavioral trends over time without interrupting the reimbursement process.

Those are just a few of the ways you can change your expense policy to help reduce the stress on both your auditors and your employees. For more ideas on how to best structure a T&E policy that promotes a healthy expense culture, download our whitepaper.

Cauvery Mallangada is an Implementations Manager at AppZen, the world’s leading solution for automated expense report audits that leverages artificial intelligence to audit 100% of expense reports, invoices and contacts in seconds.

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Optimizing Your Warehouse Space—and People—For Peak Performance

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The freight transportation industry is traditionally not overwhelmed by the peak holiday shipping pandemonium recently experienced by some prominent logistics providers, but for integrated providers offering multiple supply chain services, warehousing is one area that often comes under strain from consumers and partner companies during this time. While the distribution process frequently ends at a consumer’s front door in a small package, it begins mostly with large shipments and pallets of freight arriving at a warehouse—the temporary but bustling home where the thousands of SKUs are then processed and shipped.

Even though we are bombarded with imagery and industry news reports of advanced robotics and automation within the warehouse environment, the reality is at multiple touch points there are still human hands utilizing these tools and human feet navigating the numerous aisles of inventory.  Technological innovations will undoubtedly continue to drive new and greater efficiencies within the warehousing and distribution industry, but true operational efficiency often begins not with sophisticated tools and technologies, but rather with an excellent team on the ground floor.

Listen to Your Internal Publics

Your team is invaluable to the success of your warehouse. They interact with your facility daily and can recognize operational weaknesses before upper management even identifies them as being problematic. By listening to and valuing your team’s input, you gain an extremely beneficial and added level of oversight. Not only does fostering a sense of collaboration throughout your facility decrease potential operational dysfunction, it also enhances everyone’s sense of belonging to your company.  Team morale significantly improves when employees are possessed of a genuine desire to help your business succeed and feel personally invested in your organization’s welfare.

To help attract and retain such employees, warehouse and logistics managers should aim to cultivate a top-down culture that demonstrates exemplary leadership. In addition to listening to employee concerns, managers should implement initiatives such as annual surveys to help employees realize the value placed on their input. After reviewing and analyzing the results of this annual survey, it’s important to provide constructive feedback on how employee concerns are being proactively addressed by leadership. Developing such initiatives provides companies with a wealth of analytics for gauging employee satisfaction while also offering up insights on improvements needed in other key areas.

Strengthen Your Labor Force

With more high school students attending college than ever before, there is perhaps less interest in considering alternative options like trade school as a path for a future career. In light of this trend, warehouse managers must get creative and invest in the necessary resources to ensure they are adequately staffed.

-Educate New Hires: In what is often unfairly deemed a low-wage, unskilled labor environment, prospective employees have more opportunities than expected for learning new and more sophisticated skills. An entry level position in warehousing permits individuals with limited experience the chance to learn new software applications, diverse logistics functions, as well as earn specialized material handling certifications. These and other opportunities are excellent training grounds for those pursuing a career path outside of a traditional four-year college.

-Recruit New Hires: Look into developing visible recruitment initiatives that inform students of the diverse career possibilities that exist within the logistics field. Many part-time positions serve as great entryways for students to learn and explore the industry, while those who are not pursuing a four-year college path can begin careers that offer real opportunities for professional growth.

-Implement New Technology: Tools are only as good as the hands which use them. Use these innovations to your people’s advantage and enhance your overall workforce productivity.

Assess Your Warehouse Layout

Present day consumer expectations have become ever more demanding as the overall warehouse real estate market has grown tighter: 89 percent of storage space in the United States was built before 2000 and development of new space is not keeping pace with demand. It’s important for warehouse managers to optimize existing space since developing new property is often a long and arduous endeavor. Consider these limited cost strategies:

-Revisit Your Blueprint: Perform a detailed inventory analysis and reevaluate your warehouse blueprint to see where process improvements such as repositioning frequently picked inventory can be made.

-Space Utilization: Think in cubic feet. Depending on what you store or manufacture, there are a multitude of different racking, storage and other creative options available for getting the most out of your space, no matter the square footage.

-Optimize Workflow: Set your people up for success. Performing the above steps should allow for greater productivity and efficiency gains as employee work tasks become more streamlined.

Although the space available to develop new warehouse facilities may be limited, warehouse managers who use these tactics are making the most of a challenging situation. With the pressures of e-commerce overhauling many traditional dynamics of warehousing & distribution, we can expect to witness more providers scrambling for much needed additional capacity, so a little bit of innovation can go a long way.

We are so enticed by the power and potential of new ideas and tools, we often forget that successful operations start with employees, are supported and enhanced with technology and guided by the vision and ingenuity of trusted leadership. With the right culture in place and by recruiting and developing the right talent, in regards to operational efficiency, the old adage rings true: the simplest solution is often the best one.

 

Frank Granieri is Chief Operating Officer of A. Duie Pyle and a member of the company’s Board of Directors. He joined Pyle in 2012, bringing more than 15 years of transportation industry, logistics and executive management experience to his role with the company. Facilitating company activity in marketing, sales, technology and logistics consulting, he is also responsible for A. Duie Pyle’s Custom Dedicated, Warehousing & Distribution and Brokerage business units, which comprehensively serve a wide-array of industries. 

 

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How to Find a Perfect Employee

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There comes a time when you need to make a sensible decision. It happens to almost everyone. A film director wants to have the best people on set like Johnny Depp or Lupita Nyong’o, a smart job seeker wants to have his CV written by the best team like UK.CareersBooster.com or https://www.resumesplanet.com/. There’s the feeling of satisfaction that comes with knowing you have the perfect person for the job. These tips can help you hire the right candidate(s) that you really need.

Hire Candidates with the Right Skill

It’s important for you to hire the candidates who have the right skill you need for a particular position. The reason why you consult assignment writing service is that you have an assignment to do. So also, the reason you employ a candidate is because he/she is able to offer what you need. If your candidate is lacking in the important skills you need, it could affect the job performance and have an overall effect on the company. Make sure you define job positions as clearly as possible. This would help to keep off unqualified candidates, thus saving the time you would spend in screening many candidates.

Get in Touch

You might need to hire former employees, this happens sometimes. Stay in touch with past workers who did a great job for your company while they worked for you. To do this, you might need to carry out a survey among your present employees and ask questions that will help you to know their favorite co-workers and why.

Also, you should keep in touch with candidates who have applied to your organization in the past. This is possible through email marketing so that they are aware of job positions as soon as they are available. Some recruiters even end up recruiting amazing candidates who weren’t hired during their first interview with the company.

Inspect Resumes and Other Credentials Thoroughly

You need a good hiring manager for this. The credential of a candidate gives a lot of information. First of all, since it states the qualification of a candidate, it shows employers the most likely and suitable candidate for a job position. The resume or CV of a candidate also shows to an extent the level of intelligence and diligence of that candidate.

As an employer, you would come across all sorts of resumes, some are intelligently crafted while some are mere smoke screen meant to conceal candidates’ weaknesses. Therefore, you should always go through resumes carefully and thoroughly and also cultivate the habit of verifying information before making your final decision.

Advertise Job Openings Through the Right Medium

Use the right medium to advertise an opening so that you are able to target the right audience with the talent you are looking for. Advertising via the wrong medium can become wasted effort.

For example, you want to strengthen your online presence as an organization, post ads on YouTube or any other online platform where you think you will find your audience. Or do you need positions for students to work part-time, partner with paperwritingpro.com or other online platforms that students visit frequently. You can also use LinkedIn to connect with candidates that interest you.

Use Professional Recruiters

Yes, this means you need to pay people to help you recruit but this also means you are able to invest your time in other important things while you leave your hiring process in the hands of competent people. There are qualified HR companies that would help you get the right employees and they would deliver on time.

Be Transparent as Discuss Your Salary

People want to be sure that their job has good pay. Therefore, as an employer, you have to be as transparent as possible when it comes salary negotiations. Negotiate but don’t hide the necessary information that a candidate needs to know about the salary. Good candidates (especially those who know they have a lot of value to offer your company) may be discouraged if they don’t get the information they need about their pay. So, talk about your salary structure and ensure you do it honestly.

Conclusion

The recruiting process can be a rather stressful one so it is best to put all things in place to ensure you hire just who you need. These are 6 ways that can help you get the “best man” for the job. Your recruiting process just got better.

 

 

About the author

Kurt Walker has been a research supervisor at Brilassignment.co.uk for about three years. He’s also a data analyst and content writer at bestessaytips.com and he has the passion for topics like education, technology, robotics and inspiration.