Is this another own goal for the President of the USA firing someone that he chose for a role after just days? We in commerce may have some sympathy for President Trump because getting and keeping the right people is far from easy.
Perhaps some due diligence concerning Mr Scaramucci would have revealed his shortcomings but as we who have run businesses know that is also not easy.
So how can we safeguard the areas of appointments and staff retention? Those providing education in HR will no doubt list many things and not least of all ensuring that there is job satisfaction but there is a simple key to safeguards for those running the business operations. In one word PROCESSES.
For every operational area ensure that the processes that need to be carried out are adequately documented. What should be in each process document? The following suggestions are nothing to do with theoretical education but based on the VALE team’s vast experience in implementing systems and their associated processes.
First of all give the process a suitable title and then summarise its purposes. For example “Sales Order to Install”. The description might be something like “The purpose of this process is to receive, record the content of each sales order won by the sales force, to check its validity according to Company rules, once it has passed the checking process to check availability and arrange delivery and resources to install the machine and accessories”.
As well as the above title and summary description there must be an owner of the process, for example, Order Processing Manager.
There then should follow a detailed description of each stage in the process and this provides the opportunity to break down the process so that the individuals carrying out each task can be listed. The first part of the breakdown might looks as follows:-
Each new Sales Order will be presented to the department by the Sales Department Secretary in a folder labelled with a stamped sequential number and the name of the customer. The Sales Order will have been signed off as checked by the Sales Manager, first check. A Sales Order Clerk will check that all the parts of the Sales Order are present against the SO Checklist including the Salesperson’s commission claim and any Finance documents.
The Sales Order Clerk will enter the Sales Order on the system ensuring that the Our Reference field is completed with the number on the file, any customer Purchase Order Reference is included, the cleared Finance document number and the Salesperson number as well as any special instructions.
Once the line by line contents of the order are entered the Sales Order Clerk will check that the gross profit figure shown on the screen is at least 15% and if it is not refer the documentation back to the Sales Secretary for authorisation. The Sales Order Number is noted on the manual file.
Providing the gross profit figure is acceptable and the contents of the order check out with the system details e.g. product codes and configurations are correct according to the system, then the documents are scanned and referenced by the sequential file number and the Sales Order number and the documentation is passed to the Order Processing Manager. He/She will access the order on the system, check the content against the documentation and then finally enter an authorisation code on the system which will print a Delivery Note in the warehouse and one in the workshop before passing the documentation back to the Sales Order Clerk to file the documents by customer name etc etc.
There should be examples of correctly filled out documents and the screen entries included in the process documentation. Vital entries should be highlighted and what to do if the system indicates an error of some kind or warning.
Any measures which relate to performance should also be included e.g. any correct Sales Order received before 15:00 hours must be processed by close of business.
Also there should be descriptions of weekly or monthly checks and performance targets which should be carried out such as a comparison of sequential references entered by the Sales Department with those on the system, lists of orders still outstanding, finance documents not cleared and so on.
How does all of this help with the matters of recruitment and succession?
- Any new member of staff can be quickly trained without any danger of key aspects being missed. This applies particularly to temporary staff taken on as holiday or maternity cover or staff moving into a department to assist during times of pressure of work.
- It is easy to assess the performance of staff as what they do can be compared to the processes for which they are responsible.
- Staff job protectionist activities can be avoided e.g. keeping aspects hidden by retaining them in the head rather than documenting them.
- Particularly for the mundane jobs it makes it easy to move staff around and thus not only ensuring that they understand more of the whole of the business but find working refreshing so staff retention is better.
- This reduces the fear of losing members of staff because jobs are no longer a mystery.
- Finally it makes it easier to promote members of staff as training them in their new role is simpler.
Clearly President Trump did not have the benefit of process documentation and rules for the role of Communications Director!
