Printing Business Seminar: Maximizing the Performance of Employees

By: Craig L Press,

The Printing Industries of Wisconsin (PIW), &

The Institute for Graphics and Imaging (IGI)

November 11, 2009

9:00 am - 3:00 pm

Performance is essential for maximizing efficiency, productivity, cost effectiveness, and the utilization of resources. This session will teach you how to improve the overall performance of your organization by motivating your administration and production employees, selling change, overcoming resistance, setting performance goals, creating performance benchmarks and scorecards, pinpointing areas of improvement, measuring results, and creating incentive programs.

What Attendees Will Learn?

- Maximize the performance of your most valuable assets, your people

- Developing a performance oriented culture

- Integrating lean practices and principle

- Why "Change Is Good"

- 10 Ways to sell change

- Proven techniques to motivate employees

- Retaining your best employees

- Improving employee morale and engagement

- Evaluating employee performance

- Setting realistic goals for your employees

- Creating employee key performance metrics and scorecards

- Effectively collecting and presenting data

- Designing employee incentive programs

- Using technology to improve performance

Who Should Attend?

Principles, managers, financial officers, human resource managers, or anyone wanting to improve company performance by engaging, motivating, retaining, and maximizing the capabilities of employees.

Click here for additional information or to register:

http://www.igi.org/events/IGI_CPress_BuildingPerf_F.pdf

How E-Commerce Is Changing The Role of The Customer Service Representative

As more E-Commerce innovations become available to the printing industry, customers will become more empowered to place, track, and manage orders on their own. Many of the Customer Service Representative's daily responsibilities will become the customer's responsibilities. Rather then passing information from the customer to the CSR and back to the customer, the customer will be able to resolve questions at the click of a button at Internet speed.

So, what will your CSRs be doing in 3-5 years? The Internet, email, preflight software, and smarter file creation software have already begun to change the role of the CSR. Today, CSRs are spending more of their day at the computer, communicating information to customers, suppliers, and intra-company staff via email and web forms.

The future CSR will be more of a sales consultant position. Responsibilities will include preserving personalized relationships with customers, creating new business opportunities, and troubleshooting jobs.

Customer phone calls to the CSR will change to technical questions about file preparation, production requirements, and billing questions. The customer will also be contacting the CSR when there is a problem with the order status, finished goods inventory counts, and other information viewable on the Web.

The same E-Commerce features available to the customer will help the CSR service customers. This also presents the opportunity for the CSRs to work from remote sales offices, telecommute from their home, or use wireless Internet devices while in the customer's office.

Perhaps E-Commerce may even combine the roles of the salesperson and the customer service representative into one position in the future.

Profectus, Inc, is a national consultancy that helps printing organizations implement best business practices and maximize the value of their information technology investments.

Powerful Ways to Manage People in Your Printing Organization

You're only as successful as the people who helped get you there. Managing takes a lot of patience. The more successful your relationship with employees, the further your career will go in business. Some managers take a stringent, stern approach, but this type of managerial style is slowly becoming archaic and ineffective. Powerful approaches to being a manager are less about giving orders than it is about reciprocal respect.

Acknowledgment and Humiliation
Old style management techniques fostered respect out of fear and bossy personalities. The new manager gains respect from employees by acknowledging ideas and developing relationships with the staff. When an employee's idea is implemented, overseeing its progress while acknowledging the employee's contributions to the company will further the success of the business and give credit where it's due.

If the idea is not feasible, continue to foster positive feedback, giving the employee motive for creativity. If the idea or process fails, positive reinforcement is a better way to correct mistakes. Humiliation cultivates anger and alienation of employees towards managers.

Friendliness while Managing
Although employees recognize the organizational ladder, friendliness eliminates lines of nervousness and hidden anxiety. Remember details and ask staff how their day is going. Some managers hide behind closed doors in small offices and never interact with their staff. The failed relationships with employees only hurt and reflect poorly on the manager. As employees feel more comfortable with a manager, ideas and cooperation are more prevalent than emotional obstacles. Ideas are created from group lunches and a friendly atmosphere discussing business development.

Open-Door Policy and Approachability

If you want to keep contact with employees and their performance, being approachable eliminates communication barriers. Managers with open-door policies make it easier for employees to notify you of obstacles, goals, and ideas to bring to the company. It opens the lines of communication between the manager and his staff, which is more beneficial for the company. Startup companies especially benefit from open communication since it helps identify growth issues and creative ideas.

Humility and Respect
Part of being a good manager is admitting faults and acknowledging wrongdoing. When employees see their boss is humble, it creates a higher amount of respect. Some managers see the acknowledgment of inaccuracies and mistakes as a sign of weakness. However, people have more respect for a manager who admits when he's made a mistake rather than hiding it.

Make Requests Clear and Concise
Finally, when asking for projects or performance from an employee, managers should make requests clear without ambiguities. Employees with unclear direction lead to mistakes and misunderstandings. Let your employees know exactly what you expect from their work ethic and performance. This eliminates confusion and frustrations in business organizations.

Although being a manager puts you in a position of power, treating employees with respect increases performance and business growth. Increased performance in a business organization makes the manager successful. Employees can make a manager successful, or they can make a job unbearable. Follow these few rules for a more enjoyable job and continued success.

By Lysis

Profectus, Inc, is a national consultancy that helps printing organizations implement best business practices and maximize the value of their information technology investments.