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What Are Critical Success Factors?

May 10, 2017 by Patricia Lotich 2 Comments

what gets measured, gets done. it can be difficult to evaluate how the organization is doing without the right tools.

Whether you are managing a restaurant, boutique or insurance agency, it is important to know that you are focusing on those things that help the organization achieve its mission.

Anyone who manages internal processes understands how challenging it can be to balance daily responsibilities with monitoring how well the organization is performing. Read the Full Article →

Filed Under: Quality Management, Small Business Management Tagged With: Business Goals, Critical Success Factors, critical success factors for a business, critical success factors for a church, Employee Goals, Performance Appraisal, performance management, rater error, SMART Goals, Strategic Plan

7 Tips for Your Benchmarking Efforts

May 3, 2017 by Patricia Lotich Leave a Comment

tip to improve your benchmark efforts

Learning from others is how we all improve.

Organizations use benchmarking to compare themselves to others and learn.

Benchmarking is the process of going outside an organization to look at how high performers are doing things in other industries.  The concept is to identify and learn from best practices.

Organizations use benchmarking as part of their Quality Management System in an effort to gain insight into ways to improve what they do. Read the Full Article →

Filed Under: Quality Management, Small Business Management, Strategic Planning Tagged With: Benchmarking, Quality Managment System, SMART Goals

Cash Handling Policy Example

February 15, 2017 by Patricia Lotich Leave a Comment

The fact is, cash is simply too tempting for many people – particularly people with a financial need.

Any organization that works with cash should have clearly defined cash handling policies and procedures to help protect that money. Use this example cash handling policy to ensure your cash is safeguarded.

The fact is, cash is simply too tempting for many people – particularly people with a financial need.

And, it is management’s responsibility to ensure an organization safeguards its cash assets. Read the Full Article →

Filed Under: Quality Management, Small Business Management Tagged With: cash handling policy, Employee Fraud, how to prevent embezzlement

10 Ways to Protect Your Organization from Employee Fraud

January 18, 2017 by Patricia Lotich 1 Comment

Employee fraud costs businesses billions of dollars every year.

Employee fraud costs businesses billions of dollars every year.

According to a 2008 report by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), 994 billion dollars is lost every year to employee fraud.

This equates to businesses losing a staggering 2.7 billion dollars every day!

ACFE defines occupational fraud as:  “the use of one’s occupation for personal enrichment through the deliberate misuse or misapplication of the organization’s resources or assets.”

“Fraud is now so common that its occurrence is no longer remarkable, only its scale. Read the Full Article →

Filed Under: Human Resources, Quality Management, Small Business Management Tagged With: Employee Fraud, preventing employee fraud

7 Keys to a High Performance Team

January 4, 2017 by Patricia Lotich 3 Comments

There are many dynamics when working with groups of people. This is because we are all different, and when you get more than one person in a room, you have the potential for conflict.

Team success is crucial for organizations that use groups of people (teams) to accomplish business goals.

There are many dynamics when working with groups of people.

This is because we are all different, and when you get more than one person in a room, you have the potential for conflict. Read the Full Article →

Filed Under: Human Resources, Quality Management Tagged With: Team Building, Team Development, Team Leader

3 Reasons You Need to Manage Employee Performance

December 29, 2016 by Patricia Lotich 1 Comment

Managing employee performance is how work gets done and goals are accomplished. Creating a process and structure for managing performance can help organizations achieve business success.

Having a strategy for business growth is imperative to success.

And, creating SMART business goals are the best way to achieve those objectives.

However, goals and objectives are only as effective as the people who have responsibility for completing them.

Managing employee performance is how work gets done and goals are accomplished.  Read the Full Article →

Filed Under: Human Resources, Quality Management, Small Business Management Tagged With: advantages and disadvantages of performance appraisals, advantages and disadvantages of performance management, Business Goals, Employee Goals, performance appraisals, performance management, rater errors

7 Steps to Creating a Customer Service Strategy

December 14, 2016 by Patricia Lotich 8 Comments

Employees only perform at the level they are managed and it takes great leadership to help employees understand the importance of the customer experience. This is why it is important to have a strategy to help create and reinforce a service culture.

Effective managers help employees understand the importance of the customer experience. And, a customer service strategy can help create a service culture.

Organizations should incorporate customer service into their business goals.  As well, those strategies should be incorporated into employee goals to ensure the organization reaches their customer service objectives.

Employees only perform at the level they are managed and it takes great leadership to help employees understand the importance of the customer experience.   Read the Full Article →

Filed Under: Customer Service, Quality Management, Small Business Management Tagged With: Customer Comment Cards, customer complaint procedures, customer feedback, Customer Loyalty, Customer Retention, Customer Satisfaction

4 Ways to Keep Focused on Your Goals

November 9, 2016 by Patricia Lotich 1 Comment

The day-to-day management issues associated with people, processes, facilities, equipment, etc. can be very distracting and can affect our ability to accomplish goals. This makes it important to incorporate goals into what we do every day.

I don’t know about you but I am in a constant battle with trying to get the day to day tasks accomplished and accomplishing my goals for the year!

Anyone who manages a business understands the challenges of keeping the vision, strategy and business goals moving forward.

The day-to-day management issues associated with people, processes, facilities, equipment, etc. Read the Full Article →

Filed Under: Quality Management, Small Business Management, Strategic Planning, Vision/Mission Tagged With: Business Goals, Employee Goals, Goals, vision

5 Forms of Coaching Employees

October 12, 2016 by Patricia Lotich 5 Comments

Effective coaches are able to provide honest feedback and are comfortable pointing out areas that need improving.

Coaches can have a positive affect on the development of employees.

Many organizations encourage their leadership team to coach employees in performance,  skill development and career planning.

We all come from different backgrounds and have differing frames of references.

Some people are taught professionalism growing up and others have never been exposed to proper business protocol or etiquette. Read the Full Article →

Filed Under: Human Resources, Quality Management, Small Business Management Tagged With: Business Goals, Employee Goals, Networking, performance management

What is a Vision Statement?

September 14, 2016 by Patricia Lotich 3 Comments

Successful organizations understand the importance of investing the time to define its vision, mission and values in order to provide long-term direction for employees.

A business should be able to articulate what it is trying to achieve and the basic purpose of its existence.

Successful organizations understand the importance of investing the time to define its vision, mission and values. This simple step helps to provide long-term direction for employees.

This philosophy supersedes the notion that organizations simply exist to make a profit and focuses on identifying the customers that will be served and investing in a long-term approach to serving that customer base. Read the Full Article →

Filed Under: Quality Management Tagged With: example vision statement, sample vision statement, Strategic Goals, Strategic Planning Process, Vision Statement

9 Areas Your Organization Should be Auditing

August 10, 2016 by Patricia Lotich Leave a Comment

Businesses use policies and procedures to maximize efficiency and create consistent practices. However, policies and procedures are only as effective as an organization’s ability to enforce them.

More and more organizations are using an internal auditing process to identify improvement opportunities.

Internal auditing is an independent, objective assurance and consulting activity designed to add value and improve an organization’s operations.

Businesses use policies and procedures to maximize efficiency and create consistent practices. However, policies and procedures are only as effective as an organization’s ability to enforce them. Read the Full Article →

Filed Under: Quality Management, Small Business Management Tagged With: define internal audit, internal audit guide, internal audit plans, internal audit process, Internal audit purpose, internal audit training, internal audit where used in organization

Its About The Process – Not The People

August 3, 2016 by Patricia Lotich 1 Comment

“every system is perfectly designed to achieve exactly the results it gets”.

Organizations are responsible for creating systems and infrastructures that support employee performance.

A speaker at an IHI Conference once said:

“every system is perfectly designed to achieve exactly the results it gets”.

This is so simple – yet so true.

Good employees, who are forced to work with bad internal systems, often fail. Read the Full Article →

Filed Under: Quality Management Tagged With: performance management, Process Improvement

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