As part of our Management Academy we are running a full day course on the 7 most important management tools. As part of this course the vivacious Alistair Williams will be exploring the key elements that help make highly effective managers.

He will help you apply simple but effective tools which will improve performance and productivity.

This is an energising and practical session which makes for a great introduction to Management or can prove a useful refresher course for those who feel they have lost their mojo!

To ensure you are not overwhelmed and to help you make the most out of this fun but intense course, we have broken it down into sections:

1. Continuous improvement ,It’s a journey not a destination

2. Marathon vs. sprint, Prioritise your time,

3. Be assertive, everything is negotiable – honestly

4. Delegation, trust and check,

5. Contingency planning – What if…

6. KPI’s Trend and absolute

7. Know your numbers – efficiency, utilisation and maintaining profitability

To ensure we can complete your SDS funding application on time, can you please send us the names of the delegates that you would like to attend by 31st May 2012.

The total cost of this course is £800 per person (all course materials supplied),we offer our Simple HR clients a 50% discount. If you qualify for an additional50% discount from the Scottish Government * then the net cost to you will be £200, saving you £600 per person.

* subject to acceptance by SDS, we can deal with your claim form and will only ask you to fill in the personal details.

Due to new Anti-Sectarianism laws being passed there is a need to be extra vigilent on how your employees use their social networking sites. In March new legislation was passed by the Scottish Government, this means that it is not only the employee who can fall foul of the law by posting discriminatory comments on Facebook, Twitter or any other social networking sites. If these comments can be attributed to the business then you, the employer could face criminal charges too.

Employment tribunals previously dealt with employees in cases of discrimination but this could now become a police matter for the employer if for example, the employee disclosed their business associations or employment details.

For more information on Social Networking policies and how these can affect your business, please contact us.

We communicate each day with a variety of people both in our work and personal life. How we communicate can either hinder or increase our effectiveness.

Over the next 8 weeks we are going to provide you with quick tips to avoid common errors in day to day communication and how we can help you and your team members improve efficiency by developing better communication skills.

Tone, spelling and grammar

Whether meant or not some written messages can have an unpleasant tone. This can be due to a variety of bad writing skills:

Too blunt:

“have this on my desk tomorrow” is not a request but a command. The effect of which may make the recipient feel on edge.  A simple rephrase: “please could I have this by tomorrow, if this is a problem can you let me know?” could make the world of difference to the employee’s perception of your request.
We all have deadlines but asking politely may increase your chances of having the work done on time and will keep up the good relationship with your employee. Value and respect your employee’s and you can reap the benefits of a better working environment and increased productivity.

Punctuation:

“My printer is not working AGAIN!!! This is URGENT , when will it be fixed??????”

Capital letters in written communication are sometimes seen to be the same as someone shouting at you face to face. We can all have issues that need to be resolved quickly but resorting to shouting, whether on email or orally, is unlikely to achieve this any quicker. In fact with this approach, you are more likely to build up resentment and over time create a poor working relationship.

Rather than sending an email “shouting” at someone, it may be better to pick up the phone instead and hopefully the issue can be resolved. You could follow this up with an email saying “as per telephone call, please could someone take a look at my printer issue”.  This will reiterate the importance without anyone taking offence.

No introduction or ending:

“I need the monthly accounts on my desk first thing”, sending an email with no introduction e.g. Hi Mark or Good morning already sets a bad tone. There should always be an introduction and an end to an email. Using your auto signatory as a sign off is lazy, it will only take a minute to finish the email with a “thanks, John” or “Kind regards, John”. It is amazing the difference this can make to the interpretation by the recipient.

Bad spelling:

Yes it is an obvious one but there is nothing worse than reading a badly spelt email or even worse an email when someone has not even bothered to check they have spelt your name correctly!

Spell-check is free to use and only takes a second, it really is time well spent. Always check the recipient’s name if you can, it shows you have made an effort.

Content:

Like a story, your email should always have a start, middle and end. Ensure you get them in the right order, you wouldn’t eat your cheesecake before your soup! Try to stick to the point; people start to switch off if the email becomes a novel. If it is a particularly in-depth topic you may be better following it up with a face to face discussion rather than trying to fit in all the detail in an email. At the end of your email always do a short summary to ensure the recipient has understood.
We hope this article has given you an introduction on how to avoid common pitfalls with emails.  If you would like further details or if you would like us to help your team get better at communicating with each other please contact us or why not take a look at the courses we run as part of our Management Academy

The course is designed to give your employees a basic understanding of P&L, acquired sensible and practical tools for managing themselves and their teams and have a new or refreshed set of skills that will make their team and your business more successful.

The Team Leader training course will run over four 1/2 days: 25th June, 2nd July, 9th July & 23rd July.

To ensure that we can complete your SDS funding application on time, can you please send us the names of the delegates that will be attending these courses by 18th May 2012.

The total cost of this course is £800 per person (all course materials supplied), we offer our Simple HR clients a 50% discount. If you qualify for an additional 50% discount from the Scottish Government * then the net cost to you will be £200, saving you £600 per person. * subject to acceptance by SDS, we can deal with your claim form and will only ask you to fill in the personal details.

Team Leader Training – (4 ½ days) 25th June, 2nd July, 9th July and 23rd July beginning at 1pm on each of these days.
7 Essential Tools – (1 full day) 2nd August 2012
Tough Conversations – (1 full day) 6th September 2012
Improving Productivity – (1 full day) 4th October 2012
Building Highly Effective Teams – (1 full day) 6th November 2012
Managing Induction – (1 full day) 6th December 2012
Powerful Presentations – (1 full day) 24th January 2013

If any of these courses interest you please do not hesitate to contact us.

You will find more information about these courses on our Management Academy page. We will also announce dates and further information on our Facebook and Twitter pages.

You can be flamed by anyone who can find you on the internet  but what if one of your employee’s receive an abusive comment from someone inside your workplace. Whatever name we want to give it, email abuse can be a degrading and upsetting ordeal for those on the receiving end.

Our first reaction to upsetting or abusive emails is defence, but responding quickly and in anger will not resolve the situation but only fan the fire, this is the response Trolls like and thrive on.

Employers have a duty of care to protect their employees, including internet harassment. If you are asking your colleagues to blog or manage the company’s internet presence, be prepared!

The best advice is to complain to the moderator or block the troll.

However, there are people who are only looking to aggravate and are not interested in a discussion. If this is the case it is best not to respond to such an attack but to tackle the flamer individually.

Good working relationships can increase productivity and improve your business, for more information please contact us at info@simplehr.co.uk

If this article is of interest to you, why not join us on Facebook or Twitter for more hot topics.

All this talk in the news about female bosses, women on the board and in senior management roles… are we really still living in these dark ages?

It is a difficult world for a woman, it doesn’t seem to matter how we play it, sometimes it feel that we are still not doing it right!

Stay at home, bring up the kids and you will be seen as a fantastic mother or a real bind on the tax payer! Go to work; end up on the board of directors and in the top ten lists of worse mothers in the world!

This may be a slight exaggeration but it can feel as if we are being pulled from pillar to post. We need to find the happy medium or so called work-life balance, but can we find this without the guilt? Yes, I think we can.

Women who work part time are more committed to the role and completing their work as they have to be very skilled at managing deadlines. Kids need to be collected from school so they must leave on time; this requires great organisation and most of these women are superb at multi-tasking.

The amount of hours we spend at work are actually irrelevant, it is what we achieve in these hours that is important.

The current economic climate means that great staff are imperative to the success of your business. Women tend to have a natural empathy and social conscience; this blended with good business sense could give your business a fantastic leader.

For more information on flexibility in the workplace and how it could benefit your business, please contact info@simplehr.co.uk

If you liked this article why not join us on Twitter or Facebook for updates and info on Simple HR.

Simple HR Management Academy

If you would like any more information please contact us at info@simplehr.co.uk

Do you love your job but want to improve your management style?

Does the thought of the difficult conversation fill with you dread?

At Simple HR we have created the following training sessions that we believe can help you become a more effective manager.

Last year’s Simple HR Management Academy was a resounding success and delegates asked if we could deliver the same high quality training on other subjects.

We are delighted to announce that we plan to run the following sessions as part of our 2012 Management Academy:
• Team Leader Training: real work solutions and tools that will increase their performance   (4  ½ days)
• 7 top tips for  Managers: A deep dive into what makes a successful manager (1 full day)
• Improving productivity & managing change: We can help you eat that frog!  (1 full day)
• Building highly effective teams: let’s work together  (1 full day)
• Managing Induction: get productive fast (1 full day)
• Powerful Presentations: the sizzle and the sausage (1 full day)
• Taking the “Difficult” out of tough conversations (1 full day)

Please email us and tell us which sessions you would find useful and we will keep you informed as dates are agreed.

At Simple HR we recognise that effective management is a critical part to the success of your business and as a Simple HR  client you will be eligible following discount:
Total cost of the 4 day course for our clients is £800 per person (all course materials supplied)
including the 50% discount for Customers
If you qualify for an additional 50% discount from the Scottish Government available* then the net cost to you will be £400, saving you £1200 per person
* subject to acceptance by SDS, we can deal with your claim form and will only ask you to fill in the personal details.

Presenteeism is when employees come to work when they are actually unwell. This can actually have a stronger impact than absenteeism but are you as an employer aware of this? Some employers feel that unless an employee is in the workplace come rain, hail or shine then they are not committed to the company. But actually this can have the opposite effect on your business!

Employees who come to work while they are ill are unable to perform to their best ability; this reduces productivity in the workplace and therefore has a negative effect on your business.

Presenteeism can also cause higher levels of stress as the employee is putting them self under so much pressure, this in turn could result in long periods of absenteeism as they become increasingly unable to work. This will be an extra burden on your workplace and it is also expensive, there is the cost of hiring further staff or training new staff.

To have a successful and productive work place you need healthy employees. Encourage them to take their lunch hour and go home at a reasonable hour. Staff members who work a 12 hour day are not necessarily more productive than someone who works a 7 hour day, nor does it mean that the latter are less committed.

Striking the “work-life balance” should be an attainable goal and as an employer you can help your team achieve this by offering more flexibility. Instead of being a drain on your business this could help reduce staff turnover and in return increase your profit margin.

For more advice on keeping your staff healthy, contact us at info@simplehr.co.uk