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Improving Your Employee Asset

Written by: Gene Levine

Article Overview: If you need to lower your costs, improve your quality, increase production and/or reduce in-process time then perhaps you need to revisit how you're maximizing your biggest asset . . . the people you work with and through.

Improving Your Employee Asset

Regardless of your products, facilities, equipment and inventory, well trained employees are your most important asset. Why, because every hard asset depreciates as it ages. Whereas well trained employees continually appreciate - become more valuable - because the more they learn the more they can do and will do. Successful companies have always understood that important fact. Do you believe that your management job would be easier and more fun if it weren't for the employees who you work with and through? After all, isn't it people who cause you the most problems? If you are the one who sets the course of your business or organization and you have recurring people problems, think of doing this;

Just trace the people issue to the one person who controls the area in which the peopleissues exist and you'll discover the real problem which is that the person controlling that area received little or no training to avoid or effectively treat their people issues.

In business, as in life, for every effect there is a cause. If you have any doubt about the law of cause and effect, then you are arguing with the universe. Everything that happens does so because of the law of cause and effect. Nothing occurs by accident. There are no exceptions. For every result, there is a cause. Provide poor causes and you will achieve poor results. Better causes bring better results. Excellent causes, excellent results. No causes, no results.

Why then, if people are so important to the bottom line, that in a mad rush to survive, companies stop training and often treat employees as impersonal machinery . . . maybe even worse . . . for if a machine groans or sputters we call for the mechanic. But whenan employeeshows signs of malfunction, some managers ignore them, wishes that they would quit or fires them.

Limitations in key people cause company limitations, and when an organization is limited, it stops growing and begins to die. Today's organizations must be capable of continuous renewal and improvement rather than just apathetically continuing to do wrong things.

Often, companies close to shutting downare being run by obstinate top management who resist proper people dealings, employee development and other positive changes. These stubborn key players may try to shift the blame for their dilemmas on "circumstances" or other people, but the results of our numerous studies of top managers - in similar circumstances - makes me feel comfortable that the facts would again show that they and they alone provided the poor causes that yielded the poor results.

Apathy towards improving employee people-dealings with must be replaced with a well orchestrated turn-around plan beginning with the few people who direct the many people. And, because apathy always begins with top management it is prudent to begin sharpening their skills, knowledge and abilities through proper training, or more specifically, proper re-training.One place to begin designing your training program is to go to our website and obtain a free copy of our "Training And CurriculumDevelopment and Planning Questionnaire" and distributing it to all your key people. Once they return the confidentail questionnaires to you, use the combined, statistical findings to learn exactly what training is needed to strengthen your organization.

Incentives could also help to yield better results but all the beautiful rhetoric is useless without translating it into proven techniques. This requires change and it might even mean changing your management style. To paraphrase Ortega, the problem is, "Most view change like paying taxes. People will never change unless they have to." My experiences clearly show that to improve any business or organization a well thought out, structured improvement program must always begin with improving key people.

Speaking of proper training . . . I strongly believe that if managers, supervisors and other key employees had to undergo the kind of training that commercial airline pilots are given, business problems and failures would be reduced a thousand-fold, and business failures would happen as infrequently as airline disasters.

To capture the opportunities available to you, the time has come for you to take a multi-dimensional and pluralistic view of your key individuals and how they affect the human resources under their span of control. We have had to make assessments in the past to find newer and better ways to deal with employees and business problems. That step is once again necessary.

Any problems, issues or profit shortfalls you're experiencing can be traced back to outdated and ineffective management practices. By clinging to the belief that, "proper training is for others, not us," you are not only stifling your businesses' self-renewal but, your growth opportunities. This is diametrically opposite to what you need.

Until next time remember; There is no right way to do a wrong thing.

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Article Tags: Asset, Asset Management, Employee, HR, Motivation, People Dealings, Training



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$1,000,000 - Hi Evan, Are you talking about US Dollars? If so, that would be approx £500,000 in the UK. The Canadian Dollars differs also from the Australian Dollar. In any case, one needs to solve problems to help people to get money. The more solutions are given to people's needs to solve their problems, the closer one gets. Finally, are we talking about 'Income' or can we talk about 'Asset'? Kindest Regards Beat "Unlock People's Potentials!"
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