New Years Resolutions

I hope everyone had a wonderful festive season with those who matter the most to us (friends and family). I thought I would take the opportunity to discuss the New Year, that is 2009, as it brings new opportunities and challenges for us personally and professionally.

Most economist would argue that 2009 will be an extraordinarily tough time for economies world-wide. As an employee this means that you could lose your job. So what precisely should you do to prepare yourself, if this tragic event was to occur?

1. Make yourself valuable to the organization you serve. Companies are less likely to lay off employees who play valuable roles in their organization. Those who are trying to climb the corporate ladder are likely to go the extra mile for their organization.
2. Have a career plan. This means knowing what you want to do with your life professionally. Those who do have a career plan will seek employment in jobs that match what they enjoy. Put simply, if you don't fully enjoy what you do at work, you will get your ass kicked by those who do and make it part of their career plan. Those who do get laid off are laid off because they are expendible, i.e. they don't really enjoy what they do.
3. Consider your alternatives. Some organizations will get hit harder than others and as a result, even those who really shouldn't go, must go. Therefore, be prepared for what is quite possible in today's economic climate and seek alternative forms of employment. Those who have alternative employment placements will be able to easily transition from one organization to another. Websites like Monster allow prospective employees to consider what alternative forms of employment are available in their area. Again, make sure you factor in what you want to do with your career.

These tough economic times will hit corporations/organizations the hardest this upcoming year and as a result, creative thinking will be required of our leaders to weather this strong economic storm. Here are a couple of valuable ideas for those who manage organizations facing these hardships:

1. Develop a contingency plan for your organization. Ask yourself, what will my organization do if sales fall 25%, 50%? Many organizations today do not have such a plan and play disaster control on the fly. As a result sub-optimal decisions are made which could affect the health and viability of their organization. You have to know what you are willing to do in sunny days and cloudy ones as well. In addition, if you do have such a plan in place operations will run more smoothly and less individuals will be harmed in the long run.
2. Reduce waste in your organization (improve productivity). This is probably the first strategy that most organizations do, but often times it is the one that is executed the worst. How you save money in your organization will vary depending on the industry you are enveloped in. Since I deal with mostly manufacturers, I will give specific advice in this area:

• Reduce downtime in your organization by using technologies (such as Tracking 1-2-3) to pinpoint and potentially prevent downtime events from occuring. Studies have taken place that have shown that downtime is the real killer to manufacturers
• Reduce waste in the products you make by making your industrial processes run at optimal parameters/specifications. This advice is hard to implement without the use of computers to model and analyze how precisely to do this. Again, Tracking 1-2-3™ could allow you to maintain optimal controls over your processes. Even if waste in your process is one cent per part, it all adds up. In addition, quality benefits can be realized from such improvements, possibly reducing warranty and return calls
• Empower those in control of your industrial processes to make the right decisions at the right time. Manufacturers spend a decent amount of time and money training operators how exactly to do their job. Many have thick manuals specifying how they can complete their job. None of these tools are fully effective because they are not hands-on tools that appear when the operators need it. What operators need is to be given the right advice,instruction, or reminders at the right time so that they can get their job done. They won't be able to go through thick complicated manuals, or recall exactly how something was demonstrated in training. Again, software like Tracking 1-2-3™ can empower your operators to do the right things at the right time.

3. The final advice I can give organizations that are trying to weather the storm is to lead. What I mean by this is that inevitably you will have to make tough decisions - decisions which won't be popular with everyone in your organization. But at the end of the day you have to lead your organization and do the right thing to stay in business. There may be people in your organization who are doing the wrong things, and need to get booted from your organization, don't hesitate to boot them! Think of your organization as an airplane, onboard are passengers (i.e. your employees), if the person flying the plane isn't doing his job, the whole plane can crash and burn killing everyone. It is better to get rid of the pilot not doing his job than kill everyone on board by letting him continue doing what he is doing. In the name of humanity get rid of those who could make your organizations fragile!