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While the economy is in the state it is now, reducing costs and optimizing your assets is the most effective method of boost profits. A simple and frequently omitted asset when doing so is performance management software. Obviously, everyone is aware that making the most out of your business requires knowing in what areas each and every one of your employees work best, and knowing how to tailor your routines to match that. While this information is highly useful, it isn’t always easy to get your hands on it. Simply tracking staff appraisal and identifying progress in their performance is a huge hassle. You first put employee performance management techniques together so that you can evaluate all work done by each employee. If this was done with traditional methods, you will need to study all of that information by eye just to define goalposts, and measure further advancement. Utilizing performance management software you can be confident that this preliminary work is taken care of and you only need to look at the different metrics and factors to find what the right targets for this staff member would be. It also renders keeping track of the staff member’s advancement much simpler. Generating as it does more accurate information for less time invested, this is of course a major saving on its own. It is of course possible simply to use the software to track raw data like performance reviews and to examine these items yourself. And improving the efficiency of your staff is merely one thing you can do using performance management software. It’s often valuable to study clients and suppliers to be better able to reduce costs by precision ordering. With suppliers in particular you can demonstrate their weak points such as slow delivery times, bad damage records, etc. Clients can be analyzed in terms of how they impact your company, and once again this information can be used to streamline your systems and benefit your bank balance. Having this information means you can tailor your ordering and selling habits to maximize income and reduce costs. Who couldn’t benefit from that? As well as this, a greater awareness of your market will permit more efficient marketing.

Performance appraisal software allows you to watch your sources to save money and scrutinze the market to tailor your plans and boost your profits. It renders employee performance management quick, simple, and far more effective in addition to helping encourage employees by determining realistic goals extremely. In summary, the potential of this system is endless and depends solely on your own creativity and ability to use the information to your advantage…

Be sure you check out this trusted web site for staff evaluation info.

There is more involved in turning a profit than income alone – it’s important to be making money cost-effectively. Which brings us to the benefits of performance appraisal software. As we all know that getting the best from your business necessitates knowing where each of your staff work best, and knowing how to tailor your routines to suit. Learning about and making this knowledge ready to use tends to be where it may get difficult. Determining and tracking progress through employee appraisal on its own can turn into a significant amount of work. You first put employee appraisal techniques into action in order to appraise all work carried out by each employee. The analysis of all of this information comes next. After all, before it’s ready to use determining goals and tracking further advancement you need to know what the data means in practice.

Using performance management software you know that this analysis is taken care of and you only need to study the various metrics and factors to determine what an appropriate goals for this employee would be. It also renders following the employee’s progress much less effort. With more useful information in less time, this is a cost saving measure on its own. If you want to it’s possible instead to carry out your own assessment, simply employing the software to create and update a full record to work from. Not only that, but improving the efficiency of your workers is only one improvement that can be implemented using performance management software. Both suppliers and clients can be studied using the appropriate software, giving you even more performance appraisal tools. It’s easy to check who provides higher quality products, for the best prices and also identify those with high loss rates or slow delivery times.

As for affiliates, clients, and retailers, you can determine who who is your best seller of any or all products or services if there are payment issues, which client has the highest loss percentage, and more. Then, you can adapt your ordering and move products around to increase your income while minimizing outgoing money. To add to this, marketing campaigns become much easier to plan due to your clearer understanding of your ideal demographic.

Watching both your market and your sources is simple with performance management software. It also makes staff performance management a breeze and much more effective when encouraging staff through viable goals decidedly. What a careful user can achieve with this software is truly remarkable.

More and more borrowers across the United States are dealing with overwhelming debt on an every day basis. Filing for financial insolvency is not the only method for borrowers to get out of debt, though too many believe so. However, a solid debt reduction technique exists. It is a manner of cutting debt that does not involve wholly ruining the debtor’s FICO.

Settling a debt for a smaller pay back total is rapidly becoming a more fashionable manner to handle your debt hassles. Usually, a finance advocate can help in the negotiating of the debt recovery plan to ultimately decimate your debts. The entire debt settlement concept is a valid answer for people whose unsecured debt is overpowering. The concept is every bit as available for people who have fallen behind on payments as equally as it is for consumers who can barely afford the credit card minimum payments.

Unfortunately, no solution to debt is entirely devoid of possible downsides. Credit scores may become damaged with a debt negotiation program irrespective of how it is designed. Of course, filing for insolvency, (bankruptcy), will hurt an individual’s credit score even more. There is also the likelihood that creditors will take judicial action to collect the full sum of money owed to them. The concluding potential drawback is lenders will continue harassing you until the debt is resolved.

There are consumer friendly debtor laws that decrease the consequences of debt settlement in California. Debt collecting for credit card debt is trickier in California partially due to the strong card holder favorable laws. For example, if you would like to figure out a debt settlement in Modesto then banks will be willing to work this out with you than in different state that favors the creditor’s collection rights.

All states have laws requiring collection agencies to quit phoning a credit card holder if the borrower sends out a Cease and Desist letter which explains to the collection agency that a third party is going to be managing all communications with the creditor. California protects its citizens more by regulating the torment from collecting bureaus including the original credit giver (this is the credit card company or loan company). The same laws which cut back and moderate what a debt collection firm can do will as well restrict the harassment abilities of 1st creditors.

There are domicile and earnings protections in California that extend borrowers thorough protection. Salaries are kept safe from garnishments by wage garnishment laws. credit card companies have more reason for the creditor to negotiate under the laws in California. Many of these collection accounts, regardless the protections, might end with court. This is because credit card companies possess the right to sue a consumer as a way of debt collection.

Many companies now outsource their Employment Verification needs to an outside company. This is the newest and most effective method of Employment Verification. You simply hire a complany that sets up a corporate account for you and handles all of verification the work. They charge based on the total of Employment Verification necessary per month. You just provide them with the applicants and and proper applicant authorization.

As soon as you present the information, the previous employer should receive a fax or an email notifying them of your request. The prior employer should then respond to your inquiry. The previous supervisor also has the option to rate the employee based on particular traits such as job performance and attendance. This is nonobligatory and not required of the previous employer. Once the query has been completed, you will receive an email notification. Once you receive the e-mail, you will be able to log into your online account, view the information and print it out if you need to.

Using the same security code, the former employer would log into the system online and complete the employment verification. At this point, the prior employer has the alternative of rating the employee in categories like attendance, job performance, and other apropos criteria. When the online form is completed and all of the information is filled in, the hiring company is notified and the process is complete. Recent studies show that this system has the ability to save several hours a week of the average human resources staff schedule. A system such as this, is shown to save the hiring companies both time and money. Even with the nominal cost involved for the Employment Verification, the ability to save with employment verification is a dream come true for HR managers everywhere.

Crude oil costs are climbing and this causes business budgets are pressed short harder than even in the 1970s. With an economy sputters and credit stays hard to come by, prudent businesses know unnecessary expenses must reduced. Company directors everywhere must make some weighty priority judgments to lower costs. One of the easier way to reduce company expenditures is to make slashes in frivolous travel expenses, and the solution is Internet conference calls.

Internet conferencing allow anyone to communicate with coworkers virtually in a appointment in another city, in another time zone or most definitely in another continent. Typical Internet conferencing calls utilize state of the art streaming components. Since that they are streamed online, they merely utilize existing company resources. Only by going to the Internet, can a business person conduct a international conference from just about anywhere that has web access. Not only is it everywhere, it has huge potential to reduce big travel thousands.

Break throughs in telecommunications technology make Internet conferencing calls so easy for executives to give and receive briefings and proposals in real time. Web conference attendees can hear and see others as though they were really there, even if theyre really thousands of miles across the planet. The detail of the presentations audio and video should be crystal clear given the highest standards in streaming video.

Its hard to miss how most businesses would save money by switching to Internet conference calls rather than spending thousands flying out an employee on a costly trip. A business shouldnt waste money on transportation costs, hotels and meals. These savings matter over a year. Any trip not taken becomes increased flexibility for your business. Most everyone knows that many businesses are implementing web conferencing to reduce overhead on unnecessary company trips.

Sales and marketing, are not one in the same, but sales, in its truest form is a function of marketing. So how have we managed to separate them?

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines marketing in this manner:

1a: the act or process of selling or purchasing in a market

1b: the process or technique of promoting, selling, and distributing a product or service

2: an aggregate of functions involved in moving goods from producer to consumer

Some companies have an individual in charge of sale and marketing although this is a somewhat ridiculous title as sales is a function of marketing, at least the two supposedly independent functions reside under one individual. However, other companies will have a manager in charge of sales and a manager in charge of marketing, which really means you have two managers who are responsible for sales. If marketing is truly “an aggregate of functions involved in moving goods from producer to consumer” and I believe it is, then the proper structure would be to have any sales management reporting to the marketing management.

Selling is definitely a sub function of marketing and companies that attempt to separate the two are making a serious strategic business error. If marketing, which most companies believe to be only the functions of advertising, promotion, public relations and communication is not driving sales then you will have a dysfunctional sales department and an ineffective marketing department because sales won’t have the tools and support necessary to prospect and close new business and marketing will be creating programs that are not customer driven.

What makes the whole scenario even more convoluted is that sales mangers no longer manage salesmen, or salespeople, to be politically correct, they manage marketing representatives, directors of business development, sales engineers (another oxymoron) or some other meaningless nomenclature. Salespeople just don’t exist anymore, they have gone the way of the dinosaur, however sales managers still expect these individuals to provide sales reports and are graded on their ability to sell the product or service in question, just don’t call them salespeople.

Does any of this make any sense? It certainly does not make any sense to me. I am proud to say that over the years I have successfully marketed products to more than 50 countries on six continents. A major part of that marketing included being a salesman, I prospected, and then I closed business. In other words I sold products and services. Being successful, my career expanded into management, but to this day I have refused the combined position that was “sales and marketing”. Hence I have been a VP of Marketing and had sales managers reporting to me and made sure that they had “salespeople” reporting to them. Since then I have grown into loftier and more senior positions and I now have senior marketing people reporting to me – not sales.

But I am getting old and will end up going the way of the dinosaur and my replacements will implement “sales and marketing” management and departments.

If it was not for the customers, this would be a great place to work!

Robert Berman is a business consultant specializing in business development, strategic planning, acquisitions & mergers and international sales & marketing. He has been a columnist for the National Post Newspaper under the byline of “The Business Doctor” and he has authored “The Business Buyer’s Manual”. He is available as a keynote speaker in many areas of business. He may be reached at Robert.Berman@sbhc.ca or visit http://www.sbhc.ca

Copyright © 2006 The National Learning Institute

So, economics and statistics are the flavour of the month, or more specifically “Freakonomics” (Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Penquin Books 2006). In a quote from Levitt’s website, “Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and co-author Stephen J. Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives – how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing.” And Levitt & Dubner do have many interesting, amusing and sometimes disturbing (at least to me) stories to tell.

For example, take the case of the child care centre that was having difficulty with a few parents picking up their children late. It was decided to institute a late pick up fee of $3. As you might have guessed, this did not stop the late parents and in fact their numbers increased from about 8 to 20! By introducing the fee, late pick ups had just been legitimised and ameliorated the parents feeling of guilt.

Levitt and Dubner suggest that incentives, to be effective, need to have three components – economic, social and moral. In the child care case, would increasing the late fee to $100, posting the names of the late parents on a public list and running discussion groups on the implications of late pick ups for children and parents, have changed the parent’s behaviour? The answer is unequivocally, “Yes”.

Another example given is cigarettes. Levitt and Dubner suggest that in the US, the tax of around $3 or so on cigarettes (economic), no smoking laws in restaurants (social) and publicising the profits being made by terrorist groups through black market cigarette sales (moral) have successfully combined all three incentive ingredients to stop people smoking. And they are right.

But (and in this case it’s a big “but”) do incentives work? Do they motivate people? On the cover of their book they suggest “Assume nothing – question everything”, and I’m taking them up on this challenge. I agree that incentives work – they can change people’s behaviour. However, what do you get when you introduce incentives (even those that include the three components)? Incentives produce compliance, they do not produce commitment. The second thing that happens once incentives are introduced, is that they need to be repeated! And repeated, and repeated! Once started they cannot be stopped – a right given is a right expected.

As an employer, manager, parent or teacher (or child care centre manager), do you want compliant people or committed people? Wouldn’t it be so much easier to be an employer, manager, teacher or parent if incentives really worked in the way that they are intended? Unfortunately, because the incentive has only changed behaviour and not motivation, when we take away the incentive, it is most likely that people will revert to their old behaviour. Whereas with committed people, even when conditions change, they are far more likely to remain motivated. (Mind you assume nothing – question everything, always be wary of equating correlation with causation. They are often not the same thing.)

In regards to managers and compliance, a colleague of mine Peter Nicholls wrote recently, “Managing people was so much easier when you could just concern yourself with who they were from the time they walked into the workplace until the decreed knock-off time. Staff had each taken a vow to daily serve the organization fully and faithfully until home-time us do part”. However, today’s manager needs people who are committed and therefore perform at their best. Compliance most often only brings mediocre performance.

If you as an employer, manager, parent or teacher, want committed rather than compliant people, how do you get them?

There are three things that you need to do:

1. Select the best people and then train, coach, develop and manage them well (parents and teachers may have some challenges with “selection”, but they can certainly train, coach, develop and manage appropriately).

2. Make sure that there is a “values match” between what they believe in and what the organisation believes in.

3. Provide them with sufficient recognition (not rewards, nor incentives) that will encourage them to maintain their motivation.

The first item, “people selection and training” is the topic of a future article. In previous articles (“Are Your Employees Motivated?” and “Have You Been Appreciated Lately?” – http://www.nationallearninginstitute.com/) I have clearly laid out the case for item three, “recognition”. In the remainder of this article, I’d like to focus on the “values match”.

Why “values match” as one component of gaining commitment? Our research with employees (in focus groups and interviews) across many organisations and industries over the last 20 years, suggests that:

• People join an organisation because of the role (and sometimes the reputation of the organisation)

• People leave organisations because of poor management and leadership (not as you might expect for a better job or more money – these things generally come after they have decided to leave)

• People stay in the organisation (assuming management and leadership are o.k.) because they share the same values as those they work with and of the organisation.

How do you get (and maintain) a “values match”? You can do it either informally or formally.

In discussions with a teacher recently, she mentioned that her principal was always focussing on problem students. For example, during break periods in the staff room, the principal would continually ask teachers about the problems they were having with students. This encouraged a values match within the teachers that suggested the best way to get noticed by the principal was to bring up “problem” students in discussions with him. The values match informally being reinforced by the principal here was a negative one of “problems”. This contrasts quite dramatically with the experience of my own children who each had the fortune to have as a principal someone who encouraged a positive values match. He would regularly be seen in the grounds talking with students during breaks about what they were interested in. When he visited a classroom or made formal presentations to students, he continually focussed on positive things that particular students had done (these were not the standard awards, but rather behaviour, special interests, sport, academic and so on). He knew the interests (and values) of the students from his informal discussions with them and made a point of asking each teacher what were the positive things that their students were doing.

In a formal way, you can uncover the “values match” by running some team discussions with your people around the “Ideal World” concept – i.e. “If you had the chance to work / live / participate / attend in an ideal organisation / school / family, what would it look like? What would people in this ideal situation do?” The results of the ensuing discussion will then give you a very good lead to the values that your people have in relation to the workplace, organisation, school or family.

Bob Selden is a manager, trainer and parent. As Managing Director of the National Learning Institute he often helps managers and particularly new managers, with the perennial question “How do I motivate my people?”. If you’d like to discuss your answers to this question, or pose it again in your own circumstances, or find out more about the “Ideal World” exercise, please contact Bob via www.nationallearninginstitute.com