Performance Magazine 18th Edition

Issue No.18 March 2020

COVER STORY CHANGE MANAGEMENT: STAYING COMPETITIVE, EFFICIENT AND INNOVATIVE

EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE UNDERSTANDING AND OVERCOMING CULTURAL DIFFERENCES TO CUT DOWN OR NOT TO CUT DOWN (EMPLOYEE BENEFITS)?

OPERATIONAL PERFORMANCE LEAVE YOUR PROCESS-RELATED PROBLEMS TO A RUBBER DUCK HOW TO DESIGN EFFECTIVE DASHBOARDS?

LIFESTYLE MULTITASKING – IS IT REALLY GOOD FOR YOU?

PORTRAIT

MEHDI CHAABOUNI Strategy and Business Development General Manager, Zain KSA

“PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT – The gift that keeps on giving”

INDEMNITY STATEMENT

Š 2020 The KPI Institute Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

ID Number: TKI0202161 ISBN: 9798634799674 Imprint: Independently published An appropriate citation for this magazine is: The KPI Institute, Performance Magazine, Printed Edition, no. 18, April, 2020, Melbourne, Australia Indemnity statement: The KPI Institute has taken due care in preparing the analysis contained in this publication.

However, noting that some of the data used for the analysis has been provided by third parties, The KPI Institute gives no warranty to the accuracy, reliability, fitness for purpose, or otherwise of the information. The KPI Institute shall have no liability for errors, omissions, or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice Published by:

Headquarters: Melbourne Office Life.lab Building 198 Harbour Esplanade, Suite 606 Melbourne Docklands, VIC 3008 Australia T: +61 3 9028 2223 M: +075 4864 336 www.kpiinstitute.org

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Andrei Costea Head of Publishing & Media

Welcome to Performance Magazine

In our 18th issue of PERFORMANCE Magazine, we interviewed Zain’s Strategy and Business Development General Manager , Mehdi Chaabouni. Having always been passionate about business management, Mr. Chaabouni graced the offices of many businesses, having started out as a Jr. Financial Analyst at the International Arab Bank of Tunisia, after which he was picked up by Orascom Telecom, as a Fixed Asset Expert Accountant. However, after 3 months, he took on the role of Expert Revenue Accountant.

Encompassing The KPI Institute’s experience, research and expertise, PERFORMANCE Magazine – Printed Edition provides its readership with first-hand how-to, resources, and insights from practice, so as to assist them in their performance endeavors and in becoming state-of-the art professionals.

With these thoughts in mind, we proudly announce the launch of our eighteenth issue of PERFORMANCE Magazine. PERFORMANCE Magazine is The KPI Institute’s prime resource for insights into the discipline of Performance Management.

This brought him into the attention of Orange Tunisie, and later on, Zain KSA, where at first he worked as Financial Controller, but quickly rose to the rank Budgeting & Business Planning Specialist.

After 5 years, he picked up the double mantle of Head of Business Performance & Decision Support, as well as his newest role, Strategy and Business Development General Manager.

The content published in PERFORMANCE Magazine pursues high and wide for some of the best, latest and most pressing topics of discussion in Performance Management and in adjacent areas of interest.

So now we invite you to take part in a world dedicated to improving performance and all that is comprised in the search for improvement, in its smallest details. Enjoy this April’s PERFORMANCE Magazine!

This edition provides details on subjects such as Operational Performance, Dashboards, Sustainability, Employee Benefits, Regulatory Agencies and Performance Measurement Systems, among topics.

As we are always interested in gaining insights from practitioners who activate in a multitude of environments, contact us at editor@kpiinstitute.org if you are interested in becoming a Guest Post Editor, or having your interview featured in PERFORMANCE Magazine.

Flip through pages of extensive articles, concept presentations, insights from practice, alongside KPI in-practice examples and book recommendations, all related to performance management.

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Content.

Issue 18

STAFF

NEWS

09

ARTICLES

19

COVER STORY

45

PORTRAIT

50

LIFESTYLE

56

KPIs

59

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

69

EDITORIAL COORDINATION Aurel Brudan CEO, The KPI Institute Andrei Costea Head of Publishing & Media

CONTRIBUTORS Raluca Vintilă Amalia Rosdia Agnes Ilyes Manuel Hila Irina Suciu Denisa Călin Antonia Shahin Iulia Gabriela Tutulan Borbala Pentek

DESIGN Corina Rus Graphic Designer

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K Y PERFORMANC INDICATOR CERTIFIED KPI PROFESSIONAL AND PRACTITIONER

E KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS C-KPI

This program is meant to improve the practical skills in working with KPIs and developing instruments like

Framework v 2.0 2015

scorecards and dashboards. Participants will acquire a sound framework to measure KPIs, starting from the moment they are selected, until results are collected in performance reports.

Fram v2

CERTIFIED OKR PROFESSIONAL

This three-day course trains participants in how to set and work with OKRs and offers them the opportunity to get certified on the ability to deploy and use OKRs in accordance with The KPI Institute’s standards, developed through extensive research and practical knowledge in the field of Performance Management and Objective Setting.

CERTIFIED STRATEGY AND BUSINESS PLANNING PROFESSIONAL The course will help improve the business planning process and long-term organizational performance, through the use of strategic planning tools that will ultimately lead to smarter and quicker strategic decisions.

CERTIFIED AGILE STRATEGY EXECUTION PROFESSIONAL The

Certified Agile Strategy Execution Professional course reflects on the best

methodologies to

leverage the benefits of deploying an integrated strategy and performance management framework within organizational settings.

CERTIFIED PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT PROFESSIONAL This course offers insights and best practices for improving performance in different scenarios, from data analysis and reporting, decision making and initiative management, to building a performance culture.

CERTIFIED EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT PROFESSIONAL Attendees will gain exposure to best practices and key concepts and will learn how to establish and use criteria for performance evaluations, from implementation to improvement and maintenance of the company’s employee performance management system.

CERTIFIED BALANCED SCORECARD MANAGEMENT SYSTEM PROFESSIONAL This course offers insights and best practices for improving performance in different scenarios, from data analysis and reporting, decision making and initiative management, to building a performance culture.

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CERTIFIED DATA ANALYSIS PROFESSIONAL Attendants will understand through practical learning how to effectively collect, analyze and interpret data by enabling managers/ analysts to draw insights from both quantitative and qualitative data, based on historical statistics and trend analysis.

CERTIFIED DATA VISUALIZATION PROFESSIONAL An exclusive framework that provides insights on effective visual communication, through a rigorous approach to creating visual representations of vast information, techniques of standardization and tailored data visualization tools.

CERTIFIED BENCHMARKING PROFESSIONAL Benchmarking methodological uniqueness is represented by the identification and analysis of the processes that lead to a superior performance of a company, offering the opportunity to compare an organization’s performance against industry competitors.

CERTIFIED SUPPLIER PERFORMANCE PROFESSIONAL Participants’ skills in managing supplier performance and developing a strategic approach to procurement will be developed by enabling the identification of performance gaps and implementing action agreements with suppliers.

CERTIFIED CUSTOMER SERVICE PERFORMANCE PROFESSIONAL Participants will not only understand the importance and implementation phases for the Customer Service Excellence standards, but they will be given the necessary tools to implement it internally and measure its impact externally.

CERTIFIED PERSONAL PERFORMANCE PROFESSIONAL The two-day interactive program will help you understand personal performance, by explaining the benefits and clarifying the process of measuring it. It focuses on identifying ways to boost your performance outside working hours.

CERTIFIED INNOVATION PERFORMANCE PROFESSIONAL This course provides an interactive practice-based learning environment, focusing on best practices for developing and maintaining an innovation-oriented organizational culture within organizations.

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IMPROVEDSKILLS IMPROVED PERFORMANCE Skills have a direct impact on productivity.

We support professionals and organisations with business skills development through experiential learning.

UNIQUE VALUE FEATURES

E: office@skills.ac | W: www.skills.ac 08

NEWS 



Employee Performance – Singapore – Balanced Scorecard – Jordan – KPIs – VSMC – Qatar – Performance Management – Cambodia

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Course Story: Employee Performance Management - Singapore November Oftentimes, the Performance Management System is perceived as being the same thing as the employee appraisal system. While this is not an accurate interpretation, it nonetheless holds some employee-related value. It encompasses elements of strategy formulation and implementation, across the organization, all the way down to the individual level.

This is why we’ve designed our Employee Performance Management (EPM) training

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course to address concerns strictly related to the individual level, such as establishing performance criteria, setting up an evaluation cycle and creating an objective appraisal system.

Our management consultant, Raluca Vintila, has joined 17 members of Cambodia’s Legal Council Secretariat of Ministry of Economy and Finance, for the Employee Performance Management training course, in Singapore, between November 11th – 13th.

Course Journal Day I The training started after a short get-together moment, with a group exercise that would make everyone understand the role of the employee in the overall organizational picture. After that, we began incrementally narrowing down on this scope.

simulating performance appraisals, with each attendee playing a different role.

Afterwards, we focused on understanding the Individual Performance Management System Architecture, along with its corresponding tools and concepts. Given the public sector background of our attendees, we analyzed different employee

Oftentimes, the employee performance evaluation is done just to comply with legal requirements.

We believe that the Performance Management System should embed the employee appraisal component, in a manner that transforms the

performance management systems from other public sector organizations, such as those in South East Asia’s Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines.

“just because it has to be done”, into “let’s make the most out of it”. In the end, it’s a matter of perspective and mindset.

The training session was finalized just like any other learning experience delivered by The KPI Institute, with a Learning Assessment Quiz.

Day II In order for participants to acquire a full understanding of what needs to be done, once they return to their organization, during the first half of the second day, we began working on the implementation project for an EPMS. Since we promote the evaluation of KPI results, competencies and behaviors – the second half was allocated to understanding the differences between these concepts and the tools that govern them.

Moreover, we practiced how to set up KPIs, and how to define competencies and behaviors in a coherent manner.

Day III On our last day, we reached the simulation stage, during which participants had to apply the best practices they had learnt thus far. They calculated results with different methodologies, and gained a more in-depth grasp over the differences & importance of elements (KPIs, competencies and behaviors), ending the official course day by 011

Course Stories: Certified Balanced Scorecard Management System Professional in Amman, Jordan Day ll

The KPI Institute, in partnership with Transjordan for Consulting & HR Development, organized the Certified Balanced Scorecard Management System Professional training course, between the 12th and 14th of November, 2019, in Amman, Jordan with participants from the Bank of Jordan and Joramco.

addressed the part of the BSC implementation and alignment process across all organizational levels, to ensure its complete coverage. Given that the participants had a penchant for HR-related aspects, in conjunction with the BSC, a new element was introduced, namely cascading matters to the individual level. Since organizations are made out of the sum of their people, the system will ultimately reach the employee level.

Course Journal

Day lll

Day l

assembled all the pieces together and focused on the ongoing process of the BSC system, after its design and activation. It included topics related to the BSC System recalibration and performance culture.

Generally, the articles about course stories only illustrate the dynamics between participants, however this time, we’re sharing some of Raluca’s reflections, after the Certified Balanced Scorecard Management System Professional training course.

was dedicated to creating a common understanding of the Balanced Scorecard Framework as a whole, having initiated discussions about the first steps to be taken when implementing a BSC System: organizational assessment and organizational strategy formulation. Participants were new to the Performance Management System Audit, which is why we focused on understanding its components and methodology.

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November was a busy month for Raluca. She views the management consultant as a key individual that doesn’t only share his knowledge with others, but also uplifts personal learning, through constant exposure to the relevant professional experience and background of the organizations and practitioners encountered beforehand. Therefore, busy months can be seen as personal learning opportunities. For Raluca, there were 2 such opportunities:. opportunities:

Because you want to ensure an appropriate and healthy organizational context, so that your BSC System survives, whilst acquiring employees and leadership buy-in that is united in its purpose, not frustrated because of the process.

• Timing: A step-by-step approach in implementing the BSC System gives the organization time to digest change. Each deployment stage’s timing has to be carefully envisioned.

• Change Management: When focusing too much on the process, you might miss the context. The BSC System implies a lot of activities in a wide time frame (imagine the project plan – approximately 1 year), engages many subprocesses (data collection, data reporting, etc.), which is why the system’s technicalities need to be balanced well by actively managing contexts/environments.

If you find yourself in the middle of a large organizational restructuring process, make sure you allocate more time for BSC implementation, as a lot of recalibration will have to occur. Changing a department’s structure, activities or roles, merging or separating it will need to be well-translated in the performance system. Stay mindful and acknowledge the dynamics of the moment.

As it title implies, change within an organization must be addressed in a structured manner. Why?

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Course Stories: Delivering the Certified KPI Professional and Practitioner Course with VSMC Between the 24th and 28th of November, our Management Consultant, Raluca Vintila was engaged in a 5-day training project in Doha, Qatar.

It was the first open training course organized in Qatar, and we were delighted at the opportunity of engaging with this enthusiastic group of professionals and practitioners.

The training course was particularly interesting, given the attendees’ diverse backgrounds, ranging

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from real estate and finance, to manufacturing and healthcare. Diversity at its best! Therefore, we were able to learn from a variety of environments about how to apply performance measurement principles and best practices.

The project combined 2 programs into a single learning experience: the Certified KPI Professional (3 days) and the Certified KPI Practitioner (2 days).

Course Journal The Certified KPI Professional (day 1–3)

training course, in a practical fashion, because that’s what practitioners do – they gain knowledge and make the most out of it by applying it.

The first 3 days were dedicated to setting up a common foundation in working with KPIs, as well as having an aligned understanding of the associated concepts and basic practices.

Why, you may ask yourselves? Well, to be at peak informational performance, so that when everyone returns to their organizations, they are equipped not only with newfound knowledge, but also a practical sense of how to implement it.

Generally speaking, the group had a bit of experience in working with such systems, as some participants were already operating a Performance Management System based on KPIs, while others didn’t even have a system in place yet.

Moreover, while our course should have ended at this stage, we decided to top off the learning experience by simulating a performance review meeting. The purpose was to showcase the

Therefore, an opportunity arose, to both learn

managerial side of KPIs, as oftentimes they only get associated with measurement, calculations and technicalities.

Overall, it’s been an enchanting and enriching experience, due to the attendees’ high level of involvement into all of the exercises, case studies and role plays.

how to set up a system from scratch and identify possible system enhancements.

The Certified KPI Practitioner (day 4-5) Given that the foundation built in the first 3 days included a wide range of examples, from a variety of functional areas and industries, which brought all the pieces together, we focused on a single case study.

Special thanks to Vision Strategy Management Consulting, for enabling our vision to become a reality - empowering the world, in order to achieve performance excellence!

This was used to provide context in applying all the fresh learning takeaways of the professional

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Course Stories: Ending the year with our Certified Performance Management Course, in Cambodia!

Our last project back in 2019 was absolutely astonishing - it united no less than the forces of

understanding the Performance Measurement Framework components and tools, differentiating

3 facilitators and 110 participants, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

between performance management concepts, selection principles.

The KPI Institute proudly supports Cambodia’s Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) in streamlining its organizational processes, pertaining to performance measurement and management, by nurturing a performanceoriented mindset.

This was our third project with MEF; our learning journey started with a Performance Management training course and it continued with an emphasis on individuals, through our Employee Performance Management training session.

Monitoring and evaluating performance results in the public sector is always particularly challenging, due to its stakeholders’ complex configuration.

We trained MEF staff members in the use of Key Performance Indicators and Performance Management best practices for 2 days.

Course Journal Day I On the first day, we mostly dedicated our time to creating a common learning foundation, by 016

measurement and applying

and KPI

Ultimately, we addressed the Performance Management System Activation process, as it is not enough to have a super-design unless it is activated.

Day II On the second day, more practical knowledge was acquired, as we started working with data analysis techniques, in order to enable a decision-making process based on performance data.

Therefore, all the participants were engaged in different exercises for KPI analysis and renewal, as well as modelling and developing a portfolio of initiatives.

The KPI Institute’s first webinar of the year – KPIs that never get old New year, new me, right? What better time of the year than the early few months to get ahead of everyone else, by tuning in to the first webinar episode of the year. After several weeks of deliberation, we’ve finally decided that the best way to start off 2020 is by introducing our viewers to something traditional, akin to our namesake.

Now, we do understand that one size doesn’t fit all, and as a result, KPIs appear in the organizational world in accordance with strategic intentions.

Therefore, there’s no preformatted recipe for them.

Main topics covered: • What are KPIs and how do they make a

Nevertheless, among them, there are some which will indefinitely keep their value over time. In the performance management and business strategy field, KPIs are some of the main tools at hand.

difference?

• KPIs examples that rarely lose importance • KPIs Lifecycle: Evolution stage • Tools for KPIs utilization

During this webinar, we explored KPI examples that are popular, rarely get out of use and will be reflected in the KPIs Architecture, one way or another. They were addressed based on the traditional Balanced Scorecard perspectives: Financial, Customers, Internal Processes, People Learning and Growth.

Key Learning Points: • The definition, purpose, calculation and collection method for popular KPI examples; • What happens with KPIs in the long run, as possible scenarios of their Evolution stage; • An exposure of tools where KPIs make their appearance.

Presenter’s profile Raluca

Vintila

is

a

Performance

Management

Consultant, at The KPI Institute, dedicated to the PMS Architecture at the Organizational, Divisional and Individual level, as well as a facilitator of the flagship program, Certified KPI Professional.

Some of the most significant consultancy projects she has been involved in include the following: Performance Management

System

Architecture

Design

and

Organizational KPI Selection for organizations operating in the oil & gas, transportation, telecommunication and education industries.

So far, Raluca’s training and advisory sessions count has reached 22 countries, on 4 continents and 3,500 participants.

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Data Analysis, Sampling and Hypothesis Testing There’s a saying – you can’t improve what you can’t measure. This has never been truer than in the case of businesses, which collect data from different sources, to measure different aspects of their performance and to understand what is happening, in different areas of operations.

However, collecting data on its own is not enough to give you a serious grasp over business processes, as the data itself is facts and figures. It should first be analyzed, using different tools and techniques, to get a better understanding of the operations, market, and customers. This is exactly what we focused on, in our second webinar of the year.

Data Analysis helps businesses organize, prepare, interpret and get useful information that help decision-makers take actions based on measurable facts and information. To give you just a few examples, you can use data to explore and describe past performance, measure specific KPIs, research a topic of interest and/or predict future outcomes.

Presenter’s profile Fadi Fuad Al-Jafari is a Management Consultant at The KPI Institute with Specialties in Data Surveying and Data Visualization. He delivered multiple training courses in 4 countries in Data Analysis and Visualization.

Fadi has several certifications in Statistics Foundation, Data Analysis using Excel, Analyzing and Visualizing Data with Excel, Working with Real-Time Data in Excel, Excel Macros in Depth, Predictive Analytics using BigML and he has been part of several projects in the last years.

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Main topics covered: • Data Analysis – Key Concepts • Relevant Data Analysis Techniques • The process and importance of Sampling • Hypothesis testing using different methods • The impact of data analysis on the decisionmaking process

Key Learning Points: • Understand the need for Data Analysis in Business • Understand how we can get benefit from the data to help in decision-making process • Use Microsoft Excel – Data Analysis tool • Learn about hypothesis testing procedure using different hypothesis tests • How to interpret the results you get from the survey

ARTICLES 

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Aborigines – Operational Performance – Dashboards – Ben & Jerry’s – Sustainability – Culture – Happiness - Employee Benefits – Performance Measurement Systems – Regulatory Agencies

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Aborigines’ life equality – Closing the gap for 11 years  KPI PERFORMANCE

Amalia Rosdia

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are continuously suffering from poor health conditions, which have become an ever-present challenge for the Australian government

As a result, a number of measurable indicators have been set by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) to monitor progress against certain targets.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, commonly called Indigenous Australians, live in different parts of Australia, comprising hundreds of groups with their own distinct set of languages, histories and cultural traditions.

There are seven major such targets, set by the COAG, with several KPIs assigned for each one.

These are as follows:

Their poor health status and lower life expectancies have been the two major issues that brought tremendous criticism towards the Australian government’s inability to improve their wellbeing.

A large proportion of indigenous people often die at much younger ages compared to other Australians, due to worse health conditions.

Through Closing the Gap – an inclusive program, initiated by the Australian government, working together with Indigenous people to address their disadvantages in areas such as health, education and employment.

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1. Halve the gap in child mortality rate by 2018 2. Close the gap in school attendance by 2018 3. Reduce the gap in life expectancy by 2030 4. Halve the gap in reading and numeracy in 2018 5. Halve the gap in employment disparity by 2018 6. Halve the gap in Year 12 attainment or equivalent by 2020 7. Close the gap in early childhood education attendance.

What lessons to draw?

Here are a few examples of Key Performance Indicators that were assigned for each of these targets:

% Child mortality rates: Measures the percentage

Prof. Nicholas Biddle, from the Australian National University, identified four lessons to learn from measuring progress against the aforementioned targets.

of mortality of Indigenous children, under five, within a decade (by 2018).

1. Some targets are easier to achieve than others.

It appears that targets which are successfully

% Immunization rates: Measures the percentage achieved are those which the government of population receiving vaccines for immunization, from the total population.

has direct control over the matter. On the one hand, increasing the proportion of Indigenous Australians completing year 12 can be achieved by creating incentives to combat school abandonment, while state and local governments can adjust the education attainment age.

% Student attendance rates: Measures the rate of students regularly attending school within the specific time period.

On the other hand, another target like improving employment outcomes is difficult to achieve even with governmental intervention. This is due to the fact that discrimination among employers is not easily identified, and it becomes an even greater issue when you consider the fact that jobs need to match the skills and habitation areas of Indigenous Australians.

% Employment to population rate: Measures the percentage of Indigenous employees, from the total number of Indigenous people.

% Indigenous workforce: Measures the percentage of the workforce that is Indigenous, from the total number of Australian workers.

# Years life expectancy at birth estimates: Measures the estimated number of years that people born in the same year are expected to live, if the current mortality rates remain constant.

$ Budget provided annually for Indigenous alcoholic detoxification and other drug treatment services.

However, the latest report sadly confirmed that only two of the seven targets showed progress; early childhood education and Year 12 attainment figures.

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2. The life-expectancy measurement is unpredictable.

More recently-identified Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders are claimed to have better outcomes across all aspects measured by the government, compared to previously-identified Indigenous Australians.

Such escalation creates biases when measuring, making it appear like there is quicker progress than there actually is. It indicates that different generations of Indigenous Australians present much greater gaps in life-expectancy and health quality.

3. Target on-track one year, off-track the next year.

Given that the reporting cycle is carried out on a yearly basis, the government will have to face yearly fluctuations in their data. For example, the indigenous child mortality target is difficult to measure, due to the declining rate of child mortality among non-indigenous people, taking place at a faster rate.

Hence, the target is not currently on track, despite having decreased by 10% in the last decade.

4. Indigenous Australians in different areas have different needs.

The latest report shows that many outcomes appear to be worse in remote areas, compared to non-remote areas of Australia. The government often lumps together the needs of Indigenous Australians – those living in the city and those who live in rural areas, making it much more difficult to come up with practical solutions for everyone.

As a final parting thought, in my opinion, the government should better manage their measurement process, as the current fashion of gauging targets is resulting in middling results in terms of quality of life improvements, for Indigenous Australians.

They would have to employ a few KPI distinction & selection criteria, so that their next yearly report might paint a more accurate picture of the actual �closing of the gap�.

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Leave your process-related problems to a rubber duck  OPERATIONAL PERFORMANCE

Agnes Ilyes

Imagine that you are at work and you’re faced with a problem which you think you cannot solve, and all your colleagues are too busy to help out.

Does this situation sound familiar? Have you ever tried asking for help from a rubber duck? If you haven’t, you should probably take a page out of an IT specialist’s book, as they use this method quite often.

The ‘Rubber Duck Debugging’ is an autonomous problem-solving technique, mentioned by authors Andrew Hunt and David Thomas in their book, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master. The term refers to the way in which a programmer explains his code-related problems to a rubber duck. This process has the following steps:

1.ll A rubber duck should be procured. It does not matter whether you bought, borrowed or made it.

The idea is to have one.

2.llThe little toy should be placed on your desk and you can begin talking to it, whenever you identify a problem.

3.llOnce you’ve laid out the introduction, proceed to explain the problem without skipping any details.

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4.llBy the end of your explanation, you should have had a chance to rethink things and your duck will still be there, should you need it for further counseling.

While this may seem like a mere joke – and to a certain degree, the duck part is more or less for fun, there’s some truth to this. The point of this process is to force the user to rethink their approach and explain it to someone, who hasn’t the faintest, what their challenge entails.

By compelling yourself to break down the issue at hand in its simplest of forms, the inherent logic is that you will find what’s causing you to hit a rut.

Another way in which you can retrace your thought process is by thinking out loud. Researchers have found 2 major advantages for thinking aloud:

1. llIt helps clarify your thoughts When you start talking aloud or writing about your problems, you drive yourself to sequence all of the information you’re thinking about, which may enable you to gain new insight into your issues.

This may also give you a better overall perspective over the matter.

This doesn’t mean you should go out of your way to cease talking to other people; simply put, if you don’t have someone to talk to and you’re in a rut, a rubber duck may come in handy:

• It will never interrupt you, no matter what you are saying, and it will not break your thought flow

• It will not mind the fact that you are always complaining to it

2. lYou may discover hidden correlations This technique is most effective when you assume that your listener has little knowledge of your

• These cute yellow friends don’t talk to others, so there is no danger of gossip

field or problem. When the other person has no familiarity with the topic, you start explaining everything in great detail, in order to give them a better understanding over the entire matter.

• They are always there for you when you need them

By describing the basics and then building up the concepts, your understanding of the subject deepens as well. You immediately start thinking about what you already know, because you are focused on helping the other party understand the topic.

It is a fact that programmers are usually very good at solving problems, therefore it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they invented and put into practice a useful & funny way to figure out solutions. With that in mind, the ‘Rubber Duck Debugging’ technique could be useful not only in the field of IT, but in other functional areas as well.

The bottom line While many of us were warned by our parents, while growing up, to not talk to ourselves or our toys, as this may come off as peculiar, it would seem that in many industries, the day-to-day reality of things is changing old customs and worldviews.

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By having a little yellow friend at your side, you will be able to work independently more often, and you will not have to rely on your co-workers that much. You will end up finding out that you know much more than you had thought. So, are you ready to obtain your own rubber duck?

How to design effective dashboards?  OPERATIONAL PERFORMANCE

Manuel Hila

Designing an individual graph may prove difficult to a certain extent. The degree of difficulty increases considerably when faced with the challenge of designing a dashboard. This is because a dashboard combines a large collection of information, often dissimilar, which can easily become cluttered.

Yet, dashboards are, by definition, a visual interface that provides at-a-glance insight into key measures that are relevant to a particular objective or business process. A dashboard has three key attributes:

• It displays data graphically; • It only displays data that is relevant to the dashboard’s purpose;

• It contains predefined conclusions relevant to the dashboard’s purpose and relieves the reader from having to perform his own analysis.

As dashboards can be effective and can provide the user with the required information, the question becomes: How can you design a dashboard that works for you?

There are several best practices that need to be taken into consideration when designing a dashboard.

1. Choosing the KPIs that matter A first consideration when designing a dashboard is to identify and choose the metrics that really matter out of the vast sea of metrics. For selecting the few metrics that have the privilege of occupying a spot on the dashboard, some questions need to be answered, such as:

• How does the metric contribute to the purpose of the dashboard?

Before starting to design a dashboard, regardless of what its objective might be, a prime key step will be to collect user requirements. These user requirements include defining your audience, data sources, key performance indicators (KPIs), refreshing schedules, data governance, and so on.

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• Can the data, either internal or external, shed • •

light on the monitored processes?

Can the metric be designed to measure those contributions?

Can the metric be built as a systematic and ongoing means of measurement?

2. Keep it visual To enhance the viewer’s information absorption, when displaying the information in a visual manner, rather than number-based tables or text, the dashboard could be enhanced through increasing the speed with which data is comprehended by others. It also provides an aid in making a decision.

Some of the most common visuals used in dashboards are bar graphs, line graphs, heat maps, scatterplots that have a bigger impact on the viewer, mainly because they are clear and people know how to read them.

Furthermore, when designing dashboards, emphasize on the use of colors, shapes, lines, thickness, and other precognitive attributes that our brain instantly recognizes.

3. Allow users to explore A step further in designing an effective dashboard, provided that it already has relevant metrics and is visually engaging, is to offer the opportunity for the viewer to deep dive in the presented data.

As everybody is looking at the metrics’ visual representation, each person may have unique questions about what they see. Therefore, create the dashboard in a manner that allows users to interact with it and get the answers they seek.

There are numerous possibilities for this, like the option to filter views, adjust parameters or to provide historical overview.

4. Update regularly Ensure that the metrics which deserve a spot on the dashboard are constantly and correctly updated to reflect current business results.

An effective dashboard allows viewers to make faster and smarter decisions. These decisions are based on the data presented in the dashboards which, if outdated, are no longer representative or relevant for the current situation.

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Ben & Jerry’s – an example of how to integrate sustainability in business  STRATEGY

Irina Suciu

The general definition of sustainability means meeting current needs, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own.

The concept is holistic and developed around three pillars: the environment, economy and society.

operational costs are cut and productivity improved, due to the conservation of resources and optimization of processes. All these actions bear positive impact on a brand’s image and can represent a competitive advantage.

Its impact and relevance spread quickly from individual values, to organizational and governmental agendas. A sustainable business does not focus solely on profit, but also on its social, environmental and economic impact.

Consumers favor companies that focus on giving back to the community and environment. In addition to this, being associated with or working in an environment concerned with doing good will attract employees & investors, and strengthen the relationship with one’s stakeholders.

Sustainability became a buzz word in the business environment because beside tackling global challenges, it can lead to business success. There are multiple advantages to a long-term ethical decision-making process.

For example, if there is a drop in energy usage, the amount of waste and pollution can be reduced significantly. Moreover, sustainable business practices can yield corporate profit because 027

Ben & Jerry’s understood the importance of leading with purpose and now, the organization is an example of how to correctly apply sustainability in the business environment. As it is stated in their 2018 Social and Environmental Assessment Report (SEAR), the company pioneered a new approach to business, called value-led business, which is organized under a linked prosperity model.

The foundation for this model lies in the integration of societal concerns and the advancement of progressive social change. Basically, it suggests that all the three elements – the individual, the community and the planet, are linked between each other and if the individual benefits, the community benefits, resulting in a benevolent cycle.

This sustainable corporate concept operates within a mission that connects three interrelated parts, aiming to create a prosperous link between all the parties involved in the business process: suppliers, employees, farmers, franchises, customers and neighbors alike.

https://www.benjerry.com/about-us/sear-reports/2018-sear-report

Human Rights & Dignity

The model proved to be the right instrument for creating a thriving, sustainable business. As reported in the 2018 SEAR, their positive impact around the world was amplified considerably.

We are committed to honouring the rights of all people, to live with liberty, security, self-esteem, freedom of expression & protest, and to have the opportunity to provide for their own needs and contribute to society.

In order to understand how to properly integrate sustainability in one’s business model, let’s have a look at this company’s social mission. It is constructed based on three interconnected core values – Human Rights & Dignity, Social & Economic Justice and Environmental Protection, Restoration & Regeneration.

Social & Economic Justice We are committed to achieving equity, opportunity and justice for communities across the globe that have been historically marginalized, with recognition that this is tied to fair livelihoods that enable individuals, families and communities to thrive.

Environmental Regeneration

The actions triggered by the social mission are concentrated around four major areas: Equity, Dairy, Fairtrade and Climate.

Protection,

Restoration

&

We are committed to positive, life-giving, environmental impact that restores degraded natural environments, and enables increased diversity & abudance of ecosystems.

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Let us take things one step further and analyze the company’s activity in the Fairtrade field, given that it is a relevant case on how business and sustainability can help each other.

prosperity relationship. The purpose is to properly acknowledge the gap between the living income and current incomes, and to contribute to closing the gap.

It all started with a partnership between the Ben & Jerry’s organization and Fairtrade, in order to support farming cooperatives with trade, not aid.

The initial scope was to create good synergy for building and advancing Living Income, across the Fairtrade network.

If we were to take a look at the results in the Fairtrade field, these are very encouraging. One of the latest SEAR (2018) report highlights shows that $922,000 were allocated through the Fairtrade premium co-ops, supporting productivity and social programs, with more than 4,600 tons of cocoa having been brought from 4 co-ops, subsidizing 5,367 farm workers.

Moreover, many farmers received training and support in developing their business, so as to better understand the inner workings of what is essentially their company. Given that sustainability requires long-term planning, Ben & Jerry’s came up with a plan for 2019-2020, centered on linking prosperity with small-holder farmers, which is meant to strengthen cooperation, raise living incomes and build climate resilience.

Since that proved to be a roaring success, they later developed the Producer Development Initiative (PDI), which aimed to generate deeper commitments to farmers. The initiative functions according to a “3×3 strategy”, covering 5 ingredients: sugar, vanilla, cocoa, coffee and almonds.

According to the SEAR 2018, the plan for each commodity is to partner through the supply chain, with specific Fairtrade cooperatives, in a linked 029

Being sustainable and ethical is paramount to remaining a relevant and competitive organization.

Ben & Jerry’s is a good example of how empowering all the parts involved in the business process will ultimately empower the company.

If the environment in which your organization operates is prosperous, the entire company will follow suit. Stakeholders, investors, consumers and employees appreciate a sustainable behavior, and are more prone to associate themselves with it.

So, think big, don’t limit your vision to profitability and consider the long-term impact of what your business can bring.

Understanding and Overcoming Cultural Differences Irina Suciu

 EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE

Nowadays, the world is dominated by globalization, therefore interconnectivity is the buzz word of the decade. Whilst this trend brings a lot of advantages, such as massively increased trade, higher standards of living and diversity, it can also pose some challenges. One of them is cultural barriers.

The World Bank’s statistics show that in 2017, trade operations (goods and services) represented up to 70.7% of the total worldwide gross domestic product (GDP).

This shows us that it is common practice for companies to expand their operations into emerging markets, but do all off them understand the cultural aspect of doing business in foreign territories? Are their employees truly prepared to work in a multicultural environment?

Understanding and overcoming cultural barriers is of paramount importance for a company’s successful expansion, especially one that operates 030

in several countries. In addition to this, there is also the employee factor and their personal development.

Acknowledging the importance of understanding multiculturalism in the business world can be the key to success. Therefore, here are some recommendations on how to correctly handle cultural differences:

Be self-aware, acknowledge differences Most cross-cultural misunderstandings come from a single-minded perspective. When we judge others through the lens of our own culture, we may end up with erroneous interpretations. Failing to acknowledge diversity and differences may easily lead to misconceptions and even conflict.

Therefore, be mindful and try to educate yourself about your co-worker’s background. You can also facilitate overcoming differences by sharing information about your own culture and being open to dialogue.

Do your research, learn about other cultures After cultural differences were acknowledged, it’s key to learn more about them. You can either do your own research or simply politely inquire into the matter. Understanding the reasoning behind one’s actions can reduce “wrong labeling” and lead to a more effective collaboration and communication process.

In a working environment, diversity training could be a solution to offset the lack of integration and weak cooperation. The presence of a platform for social inclusion can result in advanced employee productivity and an improved working atmosphere.

Be open-minded, adaptable, respectful Educate yourself to avoid quick judgements and try to be accepting and open to new beliefs and behaviors. Find what you have in common and learn how to make the best use of each unique characteristic. Respect the fact that others have distinct core values from your own.

Even though at a first glance, differences may be regarded as challenges – especially in a working environment, they can also materialize as a great source of creativity and motivation within a team.

Reconcile, communicate better, be empathetic Misunderstandings are likely to happen given how sensitive this topic might be, but it is important to learn how to handle and reconcile them. Being tactful towards others, and trying to accommodate & integrate distinct cultures is key to overcoming cultural differences and transforming them in advantages, at both the personal and professional levels.

Communication is an essential aspect in the cultural exchange process. Language barriers are one of the most common sources for misinterpretations.

Therefore, be as clear as possible and make sure your message was conveyed correctly.

Final thoughts All in all, dealing with cultural difference may be quite challenging and requires a lot of work & determination, but the results of overcoming these hurdles far outweigh the effort.

There are a few things that can facilitate understanding and create cultural sensitivity, one of them being traveling, as having a firsthand experience can be an eye-opener which may nurture a more accepting worldview.

So, if you want to understand others better and overcome cultural differences, don’t forget to be mindful, stay open-minded, be curious, emphatic and patient.

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To cut down or not to cut down (employee benefits)?  EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE

Agnes Ilyes

Employees are one of the most important resources of any organization. Without appropriately engaged staff, no company could ever dream of being successful, which is why they have to ensure employees are treated as well as material, finance or information resources.

Accordingly, it is essential for the HR management department to ensure the right working conditions are in place and to build a convenient compensation & benefit system, so that everyone gives 110% on the job.

Salaries are great!

On the other hand, monetary rewards do not necessarily contribute to improving staff members’ job-relevant skills and knowledge, and it does not automatically improve the quality of one’s workplace. Moreover, if there are severe monetary discrepancies among equally-skilled employees, due to subjective factors, salaries can encourage unethical employee behaviour.

These are just some of the reasons why in the last few decades, non-monetary rewards, like life insurance, childcare, training sessions, company cars, etc., have become really popular.

Fiduciary benefits can be even better!

Everybody knows how important your typical monetary rewards are. Salary is one of the first factors which is taken into consideration when somebody wants to accept a job offer. Why? Well, on the one hand, there’s the obvious – salaries help meet a variety of basic needs, like food and accommodation. Furthermore, they enhance employee well-being, providing an avenue for hobbies and leisure activities.

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Nowadays, most organizations offer interesting and unique non-financial benefits to their employees. For example, Google offers their employees free food (breakfast, lunch and dinner), on-site haircuts and a fully-equipped gym and swimming pool. Sounds good, doesn’t it? But wait, it only gets better!

There are other companies which are pushing the fiduciary benefits limit even higher. For example, JM Family Enterprises allows their staff free use of the company yachts, while Apple and Facebook pay for female employees to freeze their eggs.

Netflix offers everybody’s dream – unlimited vacation time.

At the end of 2019, St. John Properties, one of the largest commercial real estate firms in the MidAtlantic, made another newsworthy and generous offer to their staff, by giving $10 million bonus to all 198 of its employees, on their annual holiday celebration.

“

“I steer the boat, but they’re the ones that run the boat, they are the ones that make the boat go. Without the team we are nothing, we are absolutely nothing.”

– Edward St. John, Founder and Chairman, St. John Properties

Of course, smaller companies cannot afford swimming pools for their employees, but they can

offer other non-financial benefits, which are just as appreciated and do not come with a hefty price tag. For example, it costs no extra money to boast about an employee’s excellent results in front of other colleagues, or to grant flexible working hours.

However, if you want to go for a small financial investment, then you may consider personalized offerings, admissions to local workshops or even concerts.

Cutting down? Daring, aren’t we?

What happens when an employment benefit is cut down? What happens when an organization cannot go over the top? In the short-term, it will lead to financial benefits, but in the longterm, it inevitably affects morale, decreases staff productivity, reduces loyalty and helps escalate employee turnover.

If an give up on benefits, employees may feel that their work is being devalued. They may contend that they are outputting the same performance, quality and amount of work, but they are getting less in return. Employees who feel that their work is not being appreciated are highly likely to experience low morale.

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Low morale usually comes hand in hand with a decline in productivity, because employees do not want to work as hard for fewer benefits. What is even more unfortunate, says Laszlo Bock, author of the book Work Rules!, is the fact that the same morale-decreasing mechanism triggers when an organization cuts down a benefit which although may not have been used by an employee, they were aware of the option.

If the cutting down continues, staff members might look after better job offers, from other companies, as they begin to resent the whole process. This sudden increase in employee turnover will automatically lead to greater costs, due to the rehiring and retraining processes that will ensue shortly thereafter.

Final thoughts Given how fickle today’s employees are, organizations should take into consideration whether it is worth saving money by cutting down employee benefits, as this will indirectly lead to increased spending.

In the long run, it is more profitable to appreciate hard-working staff, however that does not mean being unreasonably attached to those individuals who do not put in the work even with all the bells & whistles, in terms of salary and benefits.

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The impact of Performance Measurement Systems on business performance  ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE

Denisa Călin

One of the most debated and controversial topics about Performance Measurement Systems (PMS) is the impact PMS implementation and usage have upon business performance, in terms of clear, tangible results. Martinez, Kennerley & Neely (2004, p. 1) stated that the little body of research on this topic, as reported mainly by consultancies and commercial research companies, has two limitations.

157 organizations that were surveyed consistently built and tested causal models, these 23% achieved on average 2.95% higher return on assets and 5.14% higher return on equity (Ittner, Larcker & Randall, 2003; Lingle & Schiemann, 1996);

• the lack of a strong methodological basis; • a quantitative approach with little explanation

The positive impact of PMS also involves other types of benefits, such as:

The use of PMS, as a management control tool, reduces overhead costs by 25% and increases sales and profits (Lawson, Stratton & Hatch, 2003);

regarding results.

1.

Two research papers on the topic have approached the issue differently, through a structured qualitative methodology: Impact of PMS on business performance: a methodological approach (Martinez, Kennerley & Neely, 2004) and Impact of Performance Measurement and Management Systems (Martinez et al., 2010).

Development

of

managerial

capabilities

(Weinstein & Castellano, 2004), 2. Effective communication (Malina & Selto, 2001), 3. Improvement of reputation and leadership (Anderson et al., 1994), 4. Improvement of customer satisfaction (Davis et al., 2004), 5. The

improvement

of

sales

and

market

expansion (Evans, 2004; Larcker, 2004),

The first research paper presents a synthesis of the studies conducted on this topic and their main conclusions: Organizations making more extensive use of financial and non-financial measures, and linking strategic measures to operational measures, have higher stock market returns. While only 23% of the

6. Increase income per employee (Gubman, 1998), 7. Staff motivation enhancement (Godener & Soderquist, 2004), 8. Top management commitment improvement (Cavalluzo & Ittner, 2004)

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The use of a highly-balanced PMS facilitates healthy decision-making, which ultimately impacts business results (Frigo & Krumwiede, 1999; de Waal, 2003; Sandt et al., 2001);

during 2004 – 2005.

Using PMS and linking scorecard systems, to compensations and rewards, significantly increases employee satisfaction (Lawson, Stratton & Hatch, 2003; Dumond, 1994);

of service companies agree that Performance Measurement Systems improve people’s focus;

Organizations that regularly update their strategic scorecard, and formally tie strategy to responsibilities, increase the support they receive for effecting business strategy changes (Lingle & Schiemann, 1996; Lawson, Stratton & Hatch, 2003);

The survey study highlights the following:

•ll69% of manufacturing companies and 62%

•ll58% of manufacturers suggest that PMS improve their operational feedback, in contrast to 49% of services.

•ll68% of manufacturers agree that PMS enhance communications skills;

•ll49% of services and 45% of manufacturers

The identification and selection of appropriate

suggest that Performance Management Systems

measures and key performance indicators enhances the implementation and acceptance of the business strategy, and at the same time, enhances an employee’s understanding of the company values, vision and mission (Ketelhohn, 1998; Vasconcellos, 1988).

help them stimulate debates around performance;

The second research paper mentioned above, Impact of Performance Measurement and Management Systems (Martinez et al., 2010), is based both on a quantitative research methodology – a survey study in UK manufacturing and service sectors, carried out in 2006, and a thoroughlyanalyzed case study, based on eight months of research in EDF Energy’s Network Branch, carried out by Cranfield’s Centre for Business Performance

that PMS increases managers’ motivation;

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•ll62% of manufacturers and 48% of service providers agree that somehow, PMS contributes to an employee’s satisfaction;

•ll52% of manufacturers and 41 % of services agree •ll72% of manufacturers suggest that Performance Management Systems encourage employee participation in the discussions surrounding performance improvement, whereas 58% of services report that PMS support them the most in sharing best practices.

(Martinez et al., 2010).

•ll53% of manufacturers and 50% of services report that PMS assist in raising the overall productivity level. Similar figures are reported regarding Performance Management Systems’ effects on operational improvements. However, only 39% of manufacturers and 29% of services agree that PMS affect their employees’ performance.

•llA common agreement among manufacturers and services is that Performance Management Systems improve customers’ relationships, customers’ satisfaction and customers’ retention.

Nevertheless, only services report that PMS support them in building stronger relationships with other stakeholders, such as suppliers and regulators.

•ll63% of manufacturers agree that PMS support sales growth, as opposed to 41 % of services (Martinez et al., 2010).

The EDF Energy case study also describes the chief factor that contributed the most in ensuring their Performance Management System will benefit from a smooth implementation, namely the vital importance of performance reviews at both the executive and operational levels, which provided guidelines for EDF Energy to adjust their current practices.

Measuring the tangible impact of Performance Measurement Systems on business performance is a difficult task. This topic remains of real interest not only for researchers, but also for executive managers, as practitioners and professionals alike look to find the most optimal manner of gauging an enterprise’s results.

One key factor in deciding if you should implement a PMS or not could be the forecast ROI (Return on Investment). The ability to predict the impact of PMS on business results is crucial to get buy-in from the executive or board team members. If you know the answer to that query, you’re already one step ahead of everyone else.

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Envisioning establishments: a regulatory agency walkthrough ď ”ď ” ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE

Antonia Shahin

Regulatory agencies are defined as governmental bodies that have responsibility over legislation, for a given sector of the government. These institutions exist at the federal, state and city level.

They can be independent or executive regulatory agencies. The differences between those types of agencies concern their structure, authority, jurisdiction, functional characteristics and funding.

The level of control that the federal government has over an agency is yet another crucial distinction.

The importance of Regulatory Agencies Regulatory agencies exist to enforce safety and laws, aimed at protecting society, intervening when unethical situations occur. Since their tasks are carried out by specialists or experts, there is a higher degree of certainty regarding task outcomes than it would be if these duties were to be done by non-specialists or regular employees.

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Following the guiding principles of regulatory agencies, there are ten key responsibilities: 1. Protecting the public interest 2. Safeguarding competition and consumers 3. Promoting free initiative 4. Supporting accountability 5. Ensuring the existence of non-rival and non-excludable services 6. Championing impartiality, transparency and publicity 7. Supporting functional, administrative and financial autonomy 8. Endorse fixed mandates and employment security for directors 9. Encourage collegiate decisions in regulatory agencies 10. Promoting monocratic decisionmaking, appealable to collegiate in executive agencies.

Common mistakes of regulatory agencies

Speaking of trust, it is a foundational block for ensuring the rule of law, encouraging investment and enabling an environment for inclusive growth.

Nevertheless, there have been occasions where regulatory agencies were considered impractical or even purposeless. These statements are often based on beliefs similar to those that surround the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR), from Jamaica: 1. The agency in question does not represent the interest of the consumer, stakeholder or community.

2. The agency does not employ a skilled and motivated workforce to deliver organizational efficiency.

3. The agency is not able to deliver value for money.4 4. The agency cannot fulfil its promise.

While there have been situations like the OUR case, in many scenarios, the involvement of specialists in protecting communities has often proved crucial, as their aid enacted a quick turn-around for many agencies in dire need of intervention.

Paving the way for a better agency To reduce the chances of following in the footsteps of these agencies and making the same mistake, and instead delivering organizational efficiency and value for money, governmental bureaus should adhere to the following seven principles:

1. llRole clarity To be effective, it is crucial to have clear objectives, with straightforward and interconnected functions that help achieve the desired regulatory objectives.

2. l Preventing undue influence and maintaining trust Regulatory decisions and functions should be carried out in a dutiful manner, so as to guarantee that the regulatory agency can be depended and relied upon. It is similar to any other relationship, where ‘communication is key’ and good intents play a huge role in building confidence and trust.

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3. lIndependent regulators must have a clear decision-making process and governing body structure In order to ensure their effective functioning and the preservation of their regulatory integrity, independent regulators must make certain that their mandate’s objectives are delivered.

4. Accountability and transparency Regulatory agencies are accountable to three groups of stakeholders: ministers and the legislature, regulated entities and the public.

Businesses and citizens expect the delivery of regulatory outcomes from the government and its regulatory agencies, alongside the proper use of public authority and resources to achieve them.

which can help agencies gain insight into their performance. Here are some examples: % Nationally accredited study programs, # Frequency of inspections, # Exploration permits granted, % Work permits issued.

By making sure that all public servants undergo the necessary training sessions required of their stature, one can nurture the improvement of their emotional health, knowledge and motivation. It is the duty of each agency to provide the necessary tools and resources that enable employees to work efficiently and effectively.

5. Engagement If an agency wishes to be as efficient and effective as it can be, it must constantly seek to engage its stakeholders and carry out open discussions, in order to find better, more tailored solutions to their issues.

6. Funding The amount of money that a regulatory agency receives determines the way it will be organized and how it will operate. However, funding should not influence its regulatory decision-making process. An agency has to be impartial, if it is to achieve its objectives and deliver value for money.

7. Performance evaluation It is important that regulators are aware of the impact that their regulatory actions and decisions have upon society, in general. This helps drive improvement and enhance internal systems & processes.

The internal and external issues of an agency must be acknowledged & addressed, in order to make sure they are corrected or perhaps even prevented altogether, if possible. It also demonstrates an agency’s effectiveness, to its stakeholders, and helps build confidence in the regulatory system.

One way in which you can gauge effectiveness is through Key Performance Indicators (KPIs),

Final thoughts Adhering to the 7 principles outlined above is crucial to becoming an efficient and value-delivering agency. Furthermore, if a governmental institution boasts a skilled and motivated workforce, it is much more capable of delivering organizational efficiency, enabling it to engage in an efficacious and proportionate regulatory behaviour.

In a nutshell, implementing and enforcing laws are the two primary functions of regulatory agencies.

These institutions are a necessary element for the maintenance of today’s societal wellbeing, as they enforce laws that protect communities.

While fulfilling all of their 10 responsibilities may prove highly demanding and challenging, it should be noted that making mistakes is part of the learning process, and regulatory agencies might also fail in their endeavours sometimes.

However, since their purpose is the betterment and safeguarding of society, they should strive to become as efficient and value-laden as possible, even if they may encounter a hiccup during their progression.

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#happinessatwork – Trend or real help in performance improvement?  EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE

Iulia Gabriela Tutulan

While much research has been done on employee engagement, fewer studies have taken a closer look at employee happiness. That begs the question – what does #happinessatwork mean?

How can it be measured?

several ways. They started to explore the topic, by asking the following 2 queries:

These questions become much more important, in a world where professionals are becoming increasingly difficult to find and engage.

They surveyed 5,000 people who work in office jobs, to find out how they feel about their current workplaces. It was a sample of individuals from 7 countries: the US, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Israel, Poland, and Romania.

• Are people happy at work?

• What makes them happy?

Why happiness?

Because it has significant implications for people, businesses, and the world at large. It’s not only a universal desire, it’s also been found to have a direct correlation to productivity and creativity.

When someone is unhappy, it not only affects their day-to-day life, it is also bad for business.

Participants came from a wide range of sectors, including finance, engineering, law, information technology, healthcare, media, public service, transport and logistics, creative arts & design, and more.

Are people happy at work?

Mindspace, an international operator of boutique workspaces for companies of all sizes, conducted an interesting survey, together with OnePoll – an independent research company, regarding happiness at work in 2019.

Overall, the news is good. The results of the survey revealed that most people are happy or very happy at work. People were asked if they were very happy, happy most of the time, not very happy, or not at all happy.

Their assumption was that happiness is crucial for business, in more ways than we thought, and companies can influence employee happiness in

Nearly 84% of respondents were happy or very happy. The average response was 3.2 (out of 4).

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Is everyone the same kind of happy?

Not exactly. If we look closely at the data, some interesting differences appear. In general, men report being happier at work more than women do, across all countries.

The exception is in Poland, where women report being happier than men. Across age ranges, millennials are significantly happier than people in their 40-50s (3.23 vs. 2.98 out of 4).

Managers and business owners are happier than employees (45% of all managers vs. 27% of employees report being happy). It’s interesting to see, especially with the rise of freelancers, that 73% of people who are self-employed are happy with their current work.

connected to #happinessatwork.

They chose these factors because it’s important to understand what’s really underscoring an employee’s happiness and engagement at work.

1.llSense of purpose – Having a sense of purpose at work is crucial. It means you’re more likely to be dedicated to your job and the success of your work.

Over 75% of the very happy people reported having a strong sense of purpose at their jobs. Conversely, those who are not very happy report a low sense of purpose.

Across the world, people in the U.S. and the Netherlands reported feeling the highest level of purpose at their jobs (4.35 out of 5), while those in the UK reported the lowest (3.66 out of 5).

By comparison, just 25% of people employed by a company have stated that they are happy with their place of employment.

2.llFeeling valued – Feeling valued was found

What makes people happy at work?

as a Key Indicator of job performance. Employees who feel valued are more likely to be engaged in their work, and feel satisfied & motivated.

Approximately 80% of people feel valued at work to some extent, and 90% of happy employees feel very valued. In contrast, 80% of people who are not happy at work say they do not feel valued.

To get a sense of the commonalities, as well as the differences, the people at Mindspace and OnePoll chose several factors, to see how and if they’re

That being said, there is a global difference, as people in the U.S. feel much more valued at work than people in Europe.

People working in the creative and arts industries are the most satisfied (3.36 out of 4), while teachers are the least (2.96 out of 4).

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3. Wellness – As employee wellness programs Out of the very happy people, 99% feel somewhat become increasingly more common, it’s interesting to look at whether they have an impact on people’s happiness.

or very engaged in their job. Therefore, it’s fair to say that happy people are engaged, and engaged people are happy.

Approximately 40% of employees participate in wellness activities, with younger employees (ages 18-24) twice as likely to participate than older employees (ages 45- 55), sitting at 33% vs. 16%.

5.llCollaborative

Interestingly enough, people in research and marketing also report higher satisfaction at their jobs, than those in admin and logistics.

Across countries, most people think that wellness at the workplace is important – whether they participate in such activities or not. However, on average, wellness is more important to younger employees than older ones.

4.llEmployee engagement – Overall, 88% of people feel generally engaged in their work.

Around the world, employee engagement is highest in the U.S. and Poland (3.5 out of 4 for each), and lowest in the UK (2.7 out of 4).

environment – 75% of people feel that working in a more collaborative environment would make them happier.

This varies across countries and ages, with people in the U.S. and Israel much more likely to feel this way, than those in the UK and Germany.

6. Flexibility – 70% of happy employees enjoy flexibility. Across countries, 50% of respondents indicate that flexible work hours are one of the most valued office perks.

30% of respondents indicate that having the ability to work remotely, on occasion, is one of the job benefits they cherish the most.

7.llWorkplace culture – Less than 5% of employees find their workplace fun & exciting, and 15% find their workplace boring.

In Romania, the difference is even starker: 2% of employees say their workplace is fun & exciting, and 30% describe it as boring.

Final thoughts # Happiness at work is not a KPI between companies just yet, however given this study, one can be certain that companies will learn to appreciate the fact that #happinessatwork has major impact on individual performance, which might just make them more inclined to start measuring this factor as a Key Performance Indicator.

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COVER STORY 



Change Management – Competition – Efficiency – Innovation – Risk Assessment – Buy-In – Change Fatigue – Change Saturation

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Change management: staying competitive, efficient and innovative Borbala Pentek Change management is a crucial process to employ, when leading an organization from its current state, to its desired future state. All organizations undergo changes that regard either their business processes, their organizational structures, strategies, or maybe even their personnel.

Anyone who has experienced change, within their organization, can tell that change management is one of the most difficult parts of managerial work.

Common pitfalls when implementing change

While it is meant to ensure that the company stays competitive, efficient and innovative, poorly managed changes can result in chaos, reluctance, delays, decline in morale and productivity losses.

Ultimately, stakeholders can be negatively impacted by something that was meant to improve the organization.

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Organizations in the context of the 21st century experience change almost constantly, but not all of them are aware of change management techniques that they can use to minimize the risks and maximize the results. Stability and predictability are not characteristics of today’s business climate, and leaders & managers need to understand that and act accordingly.

This has never been truer than in the world of performance management, where we are constantly reminded about the importance of planning and development, while keeping our strategy in sight. However, how can we keep aligning our activities and projects to our values, vision and goals, if nothing ever goes as planned?

Well, first of all, successful change management involves and engages the key stakeholders. It is important to keep key external stakeholders (such as customers, suppliers, the local community) informed. That being said, this external form of communication is a broader subject, and will not be discussed in the context of this article.

What I consider crucial, though, is understanding that internal stakeholders are at the core of change management. Therefore, this article focuses on presenting the most important reasons behind failure in change management.

Change management is something that will never work without employee buy-in. We need to make employees realize the benefits of change, the positive outcomes and how these can contribute to their everyday work.

Before moving forward, let us consider, in black and white, a statistic often quoted by Forbes Magazine: around 70% of transformation efforts fail.

Why do most change management efforts fail?

No risk assessment Identifying the areas where our organization can be vulnerable is crucial in preparing for change, and avoiding the mindset of „putting out fires”, when those risks actually manifest themselves and become reality.

By failing to assess potential risks, managing change will be considerably harder, because changes will not be expected, nor documented.

This’ll make it so that resource allocation and buyin will represent big challenges for one’s leadership.

Lack of resources A common pitfall of change management is the lack of resources or inefficient distribution.

Unfortunately, too many times, leaders only think of the direct costs of implementing change, and don’t take into consideration the costs & time investment associated with adopting, communicating and sustaining the planned changes.

No emphasis on buy-in from employees The „you just have to get used to change” attitude destroys any attempt of implementing change efficiently, more often than not. This is closely linked to the first point – of not considering the effort needed to adopt said change, as adopting doesn’t mean an executive decision that it will be implemented.

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The impact of incorrect change management: change fatigue and change saturation

leaders will experience some changes in organizational performance as well. Therefore, many things can be affected by „change fatigue” or incorrect change management.

The main effect of the aforementioned inconsistencies and mistakes is something called „change fatigue”. This means increased stress, decreased commitment and general apathy when implementing change.

It doesn’t have to mean that employees openly oppose changes, but it’s not much better if they just do what they’re told and nothing more.

Change fatigue is a type of behavior that will appear if any of the other reasons above (no risk assessment, lack of resources, or no buy-in)

If you’re wondering whether there are some metrics to gauge change management, here are some KPIs that, if measured correctly, will surely signal issues with the attitude of „you have to get used to it”: • % Employee absenteeism • # Hours lost due to absenteeism • % Employee turnover • % Grievance rate • % Low performing employees • % Human Capital Return on Investment

manifest themselves.

Now, the easiest option for leaders is to explain this phenomenon as „well, we all know that people are naturally afraid of change, too lazy to get out of their comfort zone, but they will have to get used to change in today’s climate”.

There are two things wrong with this approach: first of all, people resist change when they are not aware how that change could be in their best interest.

Secondly, while one could say that employees do „have to” get used to change, in the meantime,

Final thoughts Organizations need to invest in learning how to overcome the above-mentioned roadblocks, otherwise they will not be able to keep up with their constantly changing environment, and in the long term, they will lose any sort of competitive advantage they might have had.

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These are just a few KPIs that will most likely be affected by inadequate change management and the wrong attitude from one’s leadership.

In addition to all of the matters we’ve touched on so far, there is the notion of change saturation. This phenomenon occurs when the number of change initiatives in implementation exceed the capacity of the organization to implement them.

When there are too many change-related projects and employees don’t see the big picture or the collective impact of changes, they will manifest negative behaviors, such as change fatigue.

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049

PORTRAIT

“ 050

„How can an organization know what’s wrong, if they do not have the right diagnosis tools?”





Mehdi Chaabouni - Strategy and Business Development General Manager, Zain KSA  PORTRAIT

Many individuals begin their careers in the field of Business/Performance Management. For others, such knowledge comes over time, as an added layer of specialization to their existing primary professional prowess.

undeniable, he rose to the ranks of Budgeting & Business Planning Specialist, followed by an advancement to Head of Business Performance & Decision Support, in addition to his more recent role of Strategy and Business Development General Manager .

Zain’s very own Mehdi Chaabouni is one such example. Having graduated with a Business Administration degree, followed by a Master’s in Valuation and Risk Management, Mr. Chaabouni began his career at the International Arab Bank of Tunisia (BIAT), as a Jr. Financial Analyst.

Inspired by the works of John Doerr – Measure what matters, and Eckhart Tolle – The power of now, Mr. Chaabouni welcomed his newfound role with open arms, as it provided him with a plethora of new professional adventures. As the newlyappointed Head of the Strategy division, he found himself facing a challenge like none other by that point. Alongside the company’s management representatives, he had to develop an entirely new strategic direction, for the following 3 years.

After a few months, he moved on to Orascom Telecom, where he was first picked up as a Fixed Asset Expert Accountant, and after three months, became an Expert Revenue Accountant. His experience proved exceptionally valuable, given that after a couple of years, he took up the mantle of Fixed Assets Accounting Manager for Orange Tunisie.

Staring down the barrel of what could have been a potentially tangled maneuver, he decided to employ the use of the Balanced Scorecard, to ensure things stay within normal parameters, and that the company will be able to gauge its progress in the upcoming months and years.

In 2013, he joined Zain KSA, as a Financial Controller.

However, since by this point, his financial, administrative and management expertise was 051

The implementation of the BSC came as a major personal achievement and proved to be quite an exciting experience, since there were so many new indicators to take into consideration. Moreover, with the BSC in place, everyone at Zain KSA now had a new outlook on their future results.

Elucidating the unknown through Performance Management Two years ago, when Mr. Chaabouni first began his journey into the world of Performance Management, his whole career had only focused on finance and budgets. There were no employeerelated indicators to measure, no strategies to put in place or non-financial projects to evaluate.

For him, this area of expertise was an exploratory quest, during which he understood that Performance Management is an ongoing process. Through PM, you constantly seek to identify, measure and develop your employees’ performance, as its ultimate goal is to achieve the following:

• Allow employees to focus on the most important aspects of their job

• Align individual objectives with business goals • •

& objectives Optimize and streamline employees’ individual performance Identify key result areas that need improvement

“

“You might never know the reason for your failure, without any performance management system in place.”

However, by aiding the employee, PM also helps managers and the business as a whole.

For the employee, PM clarifies expectations, provides self-assessment opportunities and defines a clear career path, seeking to promote job satisfaction, coherence & engagement.

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For the manager, Performance Management saves invaluable time, as it enables efficient and consistent performance across the board, for all of their employees.

For the organization, PM improves all matters that pertain to the bigger picture. It improves the organizational bottom line, boosts productivity, renders communication barriers almost obsolete and establishes clear accountability for each goal, objective, task or project. Furthermore, by creating a transparent work environment, it nurtures employee trust & loyalty, minimizing turnover.

Keep an open communication channel

incentives & remuneration to objective results.

An ideal performance management system is one that encourages managers to set expectations.

Moreover, it promotes informal feedback sessions, on a regular basis, setting one’s employees on the road to success and empowering their developmental process.

One point to keep in mind is the fact that monetary impetuses may not be the end-all-beall solution for everyone. You have to maintain honest conversations with your members of staff and identity what they need, for many of them might be content with their current salaries, but they might need more responsibility in their daily professional lives. Not all employees require big bucks to deliver riveting results.

In addition to this, a well-built PM system keeps said employees thoroughly interested in maximizing the organization’s well-being, because they recognize it is tied to theirs. However, even the best systems and intentions don’t always hit their stride. Employee disengagement can occur due to several reasons, either internal or external, but most often than not, the former causes much more permanent damage than the latter.

In these types of situations, if your company has established a clear line of communication between all employees and managers, it’ll be much easier to gauge what’s causing the feeling of despondency.

For many employees, this is due to the lack of financial incentives, such as performance bonuses that may be awarded per project or per annum.

Obviously not all performance is going to be equal, and each bonus should reflect that, however that should not be treated as an excuse for leaders to not reward their employees fairly. Now, fairness is more or less subjective. What’s fair to one person may not be fair to another. That’s fair to say. Nonetheless, due to one’s presumably open communication channels and solid performance management system, there are ways to tie bonus

“

“Here’s what your tasks are, that’s how you can track your progress and here’s the way you assess what you’ve done so far.”

Ownership over processes and objectives has become an integral cog of today’s work flow machine. In an increasingly greater number of organizations, people receiving more control over what they do, day in – day out, contributes to building the aforementioned feeling of trust.

You know that the company trusts you to handle yourself. This builds connection and rapport between both sides, increasing the chances that employees will want to retain their spot on the current roster.

However, none of this is possible if there is no honest & open communication channel, where people can voice their opinions, griefs, needs and suggestions. Placing equal importance on external and internal customer feedback is the key to building a sustainable business.

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Learning to take life in, one step at a time One final aspect that we discussed with Mr. Chaabouni is that of finding the holy grail of today’s job-led lives – the perfect work-life balance. We’ve concluded that there is none!

In all seriousness, he does note that finding a balance between our professional and personal lives is not only critical to our physical, emotional and mental well-being, but our career health as well.

When people speak of the perfect balance between work and life, they most likely imagine having an extremely productive first half of the day at work, leaving early and spending the other half of the day with our loved ones. This is generally a fairytale scenario, which seldom occurs in every day life.

However, that does not mean we should fall into the most common pitfall, of allowing our work to invade our home. We need rest, respite and relaxation. We need to unwind, in order to return the next day and give 100%.

Furthermore, no work-life balance can truly begin to take place unless we find a job that we like, if not love. Work isn’t just about making money – it’s about identifying what will help us grow.

“

“If you absolutely dislike what you do, you are not going to be happy or do your job very well, plain and simple.”

One does not have to fall completely head over heels with their job. You do not have to love your workplace like there’s no tomorrow. You simply have to find those things which are exciting enough that you do not dread getting out of the bed each morning.

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Lastly, try your best to prioritize your health. Set goals & stick to them. You don’t have to come up with the most in-depth plan, with daily physical exercises. You can simply practice meditation, go for short jogs or cycling sessions.

As the old Latin adage goes – mens sana in corpore sano, one needs to maintain their physical form, if they wish to upkeep their mental one. That’s also a quick method of balancing out your worklife stability, especially nowadays, when office hours have gotten longer and office work more demanding.

Not everyone will find joy in the same things, so you just have to keep looking for what holds your interest, and then make it your very own healthy habit. Try your best to keep track of what’s important, namely equilibrium, and you should be well on your way to developing a sustainable method of managing your lifestyle.

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055

LIFE STYLE 



Multitasking – Productivity – Adaptation – Learning – Chinese University – Hong Kong

056

Multitasking – is it really good for you?

Multitasking is part of our daily lives. From the driver who pays attention to the traffic and answers passengers’ inquiries, while listening to music, to the employee who answers a phone call, while screening a report, we all need to perform more activities at the same time. Multitasking is a necessity, but what impact does it have on our personal performance?

Multitasking basically means simultaneously engaging in a number of tasks, but also performing multiple tasks sequentially and in quick succession, changing the focus from one task to another. This implies spending some time switching between tasks, and some effort to divert attention from one activity to another.

Various studies have focus on this subject, but a consensus on the usefulness of multitasking has yet to be reached. While multitasking was a popular subject among HR professionals who argued that it can lead to increased productivity, recent studies have shown that the costs might actually surpass its benefits.

057

For example, C. Dzubak, in his research piece titled ”The Effect of Multitasking and Grade Performance of Undergraduate Nursing Students”, separated 90 students into texting and non-texting groups.

His students had to listen to a lecture, with the texting groups being asked to send 3 text messages to the instructor, during the lecture. At the end of the lecture, the students were given a quiz, to assess how much they retained from that presentation. The texting groups fared significantly worse than the non-texting group.

When trying to multitask, a mental cost has to be paid, which is the underlying issue here. It seems that there is some kind of ”control switch” that shifts the cognitive system from focusing on one task, to another.

Recent estimates now claim that up to 40% of our productivity can be lost if we engage in heavy multitasking. However, this is just one side of the story.

As we come across large amounts of information, coming simultaneously from various sources, our cognitive systems adapt, learning to focus on the essential. This is the conclusion of a study, performed by Kelvin Lui and Alan Wong, from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, in which 60 students, divided into media multitaskers and light media multitaskers, were asked to conduct a visual search task.

The experiment featured an on-and-off synchronous sound, which gave away no information regarding the visual target’s location.

It simply conveyed to students the fact that their target switched colour.

The media multitaskers tended to be much more proficient at spotting their target when the auditory cue was present, effectively showcasing that multitaskers can actually focus in on their task, if they fashion themselves or receive certain cues.

What this entailed was the fact that switching focus can be learnt, and the efficacy of multitasking can increase if the tasks performed are familiar and relatively uncomplicated.

These are just two examples that highlight the pros and cons of multitasking. Although it certainly has its costs, it has nonetheless become a necessity in our daily lives. We don’t work on just one matter, we have to allocate resources to several tasks or projects at once.

This is why time management and productivity tools have surged in popularity, in recent years.

They are a means that should be used to offset the negative effects of multitasking, and ensure that all tasks are accomplished on time and at the desired level.

With the right tools and proper exercise, multitasking can become an ingrained, positive routine for us, instead of a side-effect of today’s busy work flows.

058

KPIS ď „

ď

# Hospital-acquired infections, $ Cost per discharge, % Patient complaints, # Employee tenure, # Management-to-staff ratio, % New hire failure, $ Risk exposure, % Operational risk, # Employees allocated to risk management

059

# Hospital-acquired infections Definition Measures the number of patient or staff cases of infection, following an exposure to contagious hospital environment elements.

Purpose To indicate service quality and a patient’s risk of infection or inconvenience due to a hospital’s environment.

 HEALTHCARE

Recommendations This indicator refers to infections afflicting a patient in a hospital or another healthcare facility, where the infection was not present or incubated at the time of admission. This includes infections acquired in the hospital, but appearing after discharge, and also occupational infections among staff members.

Infections are considered nosocomial if they first appear 48 hours or more after hospital admission or within 30 days after discharge. # Hospital-acquired infections are one of the critical issues in today’s healthcare industry, associated with the quality of medical services delivered and patient safety. A hospital-acquired infection is defined as an infection acquired during a patient’s stay in a hospital or healthcare center, infection that was not present at the time of admission.

Targets may vary according to hygienic hospital procedures, surgical procedures, hospital bed capacity, the number of patients that can be admitted, the length of their stay and risk of infection. A high level of hospital-acquired 060

infections indicates poor quality service regarding facilities, environment, protection and hygiene.

Some recommendations on preventing hospitalacquired illnesses include the following: Implementing risk mitigation strategies to reduce the number of hospital-acquired infections; Developing effective infection control programs, policies and procedures; Enforcing appropriate hand washing, glove use and sterilization practices; Improving detection and monitoring activities, to discover any potential sources of infection early on; The prevention and control of infections within hospital environments is the responsibility of all healthcare professional members, so in this regard, everyone has to do their part, regardless of their role within their respective healthcare facility.

$ Cost per discharge

Definition Measures the average hospital cost encountered for each discharged patient.

Purpose To evaluate a hospital’s costvolume relationship performance.

ď ”ď ” HEALTHCARE

Recommendations One of the major concerns in hospital environments nowadays is cost management. This is especially valid when the majority of healthcare costs are fixed, and can be but briefly impacted by hospital occupancy rates and patient volume. The values of this KPI are vital for the assessment of inpatient costs and thus for establishing the general cost efficiency of healthcare facilities.

Another important concern, which has to be considered when taking action in response to this KPI, is the fact that it should be mainly driven by the accessibility of comparative data. Other aspects to be taken into consideration when utilizing this metric include: Minding the fact that this cost can substantially change according to inpatient condition;

Considering hospital size, inflation and patient age when acting upon the results of this KPI; Ideally, calculating this KPI at clinical department, rather than at hospital level; Taking into account the various patient insurance programs and the extent to which the costs of care are covered by them.

This indicator can be reported for categories of patients as this can give more information on the cost allocation among different patients.

Furthermore, targets may vary considerably among high-volume hospitals and low-volume ones. For low-intake hospitals, this KPI may appear to be more sensitive to the changes in inpatient demand in different time periods.

061

% Patient complaints Definition

Purpose

Measures the percentage of patients registering a complaint regarding medical services, from the overall number of patients.

To reflect the quality of medical services, as it has a direct impact on patient satisfaction.

Considering that the complaints received may address different topics, from hospital logistics to the actual medical procedures, they should be processed one by one in order to identify the issues that need to be solved or improved.

A measure of patient satisfaction, and nonetheless patient experience, % Patient complaints will almost certainly provide an indication of the quality of healthcare provision, the clinical environment and the behaviour of medical staff

ď ”ď ” HEALTHCARE

Recommendations A positive patient experience is driven by a multitude of factors, which span from what hospital facilities patients have at their disposal, to the attitude of caregivers. It is also not seldom that patient experience becomes the focal point of an entire healthcare system. A strong focus on patient experience frequently unravels gaps in the provision of care that may have otherwise gone unnoticed. Thus, complaints help to improve local policies and guidelines, highlight deficiencies in healthcare provision, and improve overall patient safety.

Implementing policies, procedures and processes to investigate and solve patient complaints and grievances as efficiently as possible;

Depending on the manner in which general complaints are received, they may be difficult to handle or time consuming. Hence, it is of a great importance to implement an adequate system of collecting and processing them. In this respect, an efficient solution will be an electronic feedback form. By using such a system, both the collection and analysis procedures will be greatly streamlined.

Empowering frontline staff to act as the first line of defense against complaints;

Training all staff members to manage patient and family expectations effectively; Using dedicated staff to provide resolutions to problems before they escalate; Employing a proactive approach to customer service;

Designing and disseminating patient satisfaction surveys in order to identify possible improvement initiatives and address trends in the industry;

and

Optimizing the grievance management process; Making patients the primary focus for healthcare providers;

Designing a process to capture and address all complaints and grievances;

Continuously seeking to improve their work processes, in order to address the ever-changing expectations of patients;

Some recommendations on handling increasing patient satisfaction include:

Investing in modernizing hospital facilities.

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# Employee tenure Definition Measures the number of years that the employees have been with their current employer, calculated at organizational level.

Purpose To monitor the length of service of employees, as an indicator of workforce profile.

ď ”ď ” HUMAN RESOURCES

Recommendations It is possible to report individual employee tenure not only as a total number of months or years spent with the company, but also broken out in the time duration spent per job position. This granularity helps managers to assess employee eligibility for promotions, position rotation as well as other tenure-related benefits, such as plan achievement, leaves of absence etc.

Monitoring average employee tenure by job may be useful in indicating unexpectedly low tenure in a particular department. If it is not managed, high turnover can lead to poor employee morale and poor employee performance. It does not always reflect employee satisfaction with the working environment, as some employees could stay with the company for other reasons, such as not being able too find a better job or just wanting to add the current position to their CV.

affected by labour market conditions and by organizational maturity. Benchmarking is not recommended for this specific reason.

Employee retention rates can also be reflected in the # Employee tenure, which is the number of years that the employees have been with their current employer, calculated at the organizational level.

However important long tenure may be to the retention strategy of the organization, it is not advisable to disregard the implications of a too long tenure: Resistance to changes in the organizational culture; Little enthusiasm for further innovation;

While high employee tenure indicates retained knowledge, it may also impact the level of new ideas and energy associated with new employees.

Employee tenure varies across industries, is

Reduced versatility in a fast-changing environment; Little tolerance to new, fast-paced generations.

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# Management-to-staff ratio Definition Measures the ratio between the number of employees in managerial positions and the headcount of the organization.

Purpose To assess the organizational structure and optimize the hierarchical balance.

ď ”ď ” HUMAN RESOURCES

Recommendations # Management-to-staff ratio reflects the career path development outlook, the organizational approach to personnel management, being therefore an important indicator of HR cost containment. It should be calculated at organizational level as well as for each department or functional area, not just for the whole organization.

opportunities to prepare the next generation of executives.

Overall, there are various factors that can influence this ratio: industry, organizational structure, combination of job functions, approach to internal talent development and cost constraints.

An effective # Management-to-staff ratio will reflect on the most adequate distribution of employees per manager or supervisor, while taking into consideration all other factors that may contribute to that distribution: line of work, nature of tasks, entailed responsibilities, demand for supervision etc.

A high ratio can indicate that a particular department or division is top-heavy. For companies with many layers of management, it may complicate communication and lengthen response times for critical decisions. However, it may also reflect an organizational approach to employee retention and development, by providing staff with many managerial level opportunities.

A low ratio generally reflects a flat organizational structure, or the fact that a company is undermanaged. Nonetheless, this may have negative effects on succession planning, as there are fewer 064

Depending on type and size, each organization is responsible for finding the proper balance in its # Management-to-staff-ratio. While some organizations may find it suitable to have a 20:1 ratio, others may find a 5:1 ratio just as satisfactory.

The elements that generally contribute to finding a suitable span of control include: Budget considerations; Workload assessment; Team distributions; Staff turnover.

% New hire failure Definition Measures the rate at which new employees left the organization (voluntary or by being terminated) in a short time period after being hired (e.g. under 30, 90 or 180 days).

Purpose To assess the effectiveness level of the recruiting process.

It reflects the new hire quality and fit with the role and the organization.

ď ”ď ” HUMAN RESOURCES

Recommendations According to the Society for Human Resources Management, 50% of all hourly workers leave their new positions within 4 months of hire.

Recommended practices on mastering the onboarding process of new employees include the following:

New hire failures are commonly consequences of employee attitude rather than employee skill.

Technical skills, as well as soft skills are generally easy to assess and invariably test before a new hire. Therefore, it is behavior that either reinforces or undermines skill.

New hire failure has negative effects due to the loss of know-how, the cost of replacing employees and the duration of the replacement process.

A high failure rate for new employees requires root-cause analysis to determine and address its causes.

Abiding by a formal induction process that explicitly communicates the core policies and procedures of the organization; Providing new hires with all the necessary information that concerns the role and their responsibilities within the organization; Granting new employees, the human resources education that they need to fully understand vacation and leave policies, employee benefits, the company’s code of conduct, bonus and reward systems;

Programs designed to improve skills have proven to be successful, but they have seldom been responsible for changes in employee behavior. A successful onboarding process ensures that all new employees acquire the behaviors that best reflect the values of the organization.

Training new hires into the functional area of their job; Giving new hires the opportunity of freely communicating anything to their internal peers.

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$ Risk exposure Definition Measures the total loss in the case of a risk occurring, by factoring in the probability of the occurrence taking place.

Purpose To measure the level of uncertainty which may bring financial losses to the organization.

 RISK MANAGEMENT

Recommendations In order to effectively manage risk, management should understand the risk bearing capacity and the willingness to assume risk. When analyzing the risks involved, a risk matrix or a risk exposure scoring tool can help provide a full picture of the overall risk exposure level and its components.

single company-wide approach.

A comprehensive risk management framework will measure the exposure to risk as the percentage of uncontrollable events that will cause company loss. Although, generally referred to as risk, the exposure to loss can be either pure or speculative.

Some of the practices mustered in doing so include the following:

1. Pure risk exclusively incurs loss or no loss, and it is the type of risk that is related to natural disasters.

Pure risk is commonly insured.

2. Speculative risk involves both loss and gain, and it is related to operational risk, reputational risk, investment risk, currency risk etc.

That being said, there is a third type, known as Enterprise Risk. Enterprise Risk simultaneously considers both pure and speculative risk into a 066

Since there is no available technique or tool that completely eradicates a company’s exposure to risk, organizations usually focus on developing a coherent strategy to mitigate $ Risk exposure.

The use of standardized tools such as the risk matrix in a personalized manner that best suits each company strategy and risk management framework; Risk management techniques – root cause analysis, cause and effect diagrams – that make uncontrollable risk, controllable; A qualitative risk analysis that investigates on risk probability, urgency and impact; A quantitative risk analysis which provides accurate forecasting of loss due to $ Risk exposure.

% Risk losses covered Definition Measures the percentage of risk related losses covered by the generated revenue.

Purpose Measures the percentage of risk related losses covered by the generated revenue.

ď ”ď ” RISK MANAGEMENT

Recommendations This indicator is important because it allows you to set the minimum level of sales so as to cover all the expenses.

There are many dimensions to operational risk and they are related to company policy and procedures, internal principles, proprietary disclosures, employment practices, customer and third-party agreements, product delivery, strategy execution, as well as any other conventions that need to be upheld in order to prevent company losses.

An Operational Risk Management Framework enables an organization to measure, monitor and control deviance to such an extent that it becomes risk tolerant. Some of the practices that help mitigate risk are associated with: Understanding processes;

and

mapping

company 067

Selecting the most relevant Key Risk Indicators to measure risk; Developing risk management strategies; Assigning capabilities that tackle risk related issues; Monitoring company performance; Nurturing an organizational culture that seeks improvement.

The recommended way to collect data for this indicator is through internal loss databases (ILDs).

Internal loss databases provide insight into the risk appetite of the organization as determined by risk management practices at all levels of the organization, including operational.

# Employees allocated to risk management Definition Measures the number of employees dealing with risk management activities.

Purpose To indicate the effort put into risk management within the organization.

ď ”ď ” RISK MANAGEMENT

Recommendations There is a growing tendency for organizations nowadays to set up a division of risk management within their structure. It is most often seen in government organizations. The team of staff is responsible for providing risk management activities, such as technical assistance, liability, claims administrations and insurance services.

Risk Management can be a function taken over by a person in the organization, such as the Chief Financial Officer, it can be a dedicated position as Risk Management Officer, or an entire department can be built around this activity.

The decision regarding the formal structure of risk management in the organization depends on the organizational size and industry. To ensure an effective deployment of this activity is important to allocate the necessary human resources for risk assessment and control.

Furthermore, the risk management team can be extended towards all Directors in the organization

as doing risk management is a matter that concerns all managerial positions.

In this manner, the company can rely on one full time equivalent Risk Management Officer, who acts as an internal consultant on this matter and as a coordinator of all risk management initiatives, and who receives support from other business units/department Directors.

All managerial positions should be trained and educated on the best practices of risk management. They should also be aware on the overall risk appetite of the organization and align their decisions to it.

Accurate reporting on this KPI requires a wellmaintained register of human resource, and targets for the said report may vary according to organizational size and industry. For example, companies in the airline industry require much more resources for developing and maintaining risk management controls than other industries.

068

READING LIST 



Strategic Management – High Performance Teams – Discipline – Transforming Performance Management – Kaizen – Warehouse Operations

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The following is a list of must-haves for your reading list: 1.llStrategic Management: Value Sustainability, and Performance

Creation,

By Page West

4.llKaizen: How to Apply Lean Kaizen to Your Startup Business and Management to Improve Productivity, Communication, and Performance

By Greg Caldwell

Emphasizing the value chain and resource-based sustainability as central concepts, this book draws

This book touches on many topics such as correcting

on the twin “strategic imperatives” of value creation

mistakes, eliminating waste, generating ideas and

and opportunity recognition as recurrent themes that

boosting employee morale. Sure, you can find plenty of

help to synch ideas from cover to cover. Examples

free advice on how to carry out those tasks. However,

from strategy development in highly competitive

it’s rare to encounter an approach that’s applicable to

environments illustrate how traditional theoretical

all of them. One of the best things about this book is

principles and analytical frameworks apply to today’s

how it highlights teamwork. Kaizen, as a management

dynamic business climate.

approach, is quite distinct for how it regards people.

Nowadays, you can set up a business on your own.

Sooner or later, however, you’re going to need help.

2.ll5 Disciplines of High Performance Teams: Proven Practices of Teams that Change the World One Day at a Time (The Archimedes Experiment)

5.llPractical Performance Management: Managing Quality & Productivity in Warehouse Operations

By Dr. De Hicks

By Paul Lukehart

This book is the result of over 30 years of research

Do your teams struggle to improve their productivity?

into the practical underpinnings of wildly successful

Is every day a firefight to avoid mistakes and their 10x

teams of our own and of the hundreds of groups we’ve

cost-of-poor-quality? Are you unsure how to define

helped create. This book shows you how to practice

and get the best results from your teams? Well, fret no

the 5 Disciplines of every effective team. Show Up, Pay

longer! Practical Performance Management covers how

Attention, Be Authentic, Get Results and Have Fun and

properly identify hourly employee performance goals,

your team will join the ranks of the highest impact

develop reporting, and administer a system with your

groups in history.

supervisors and managers that ensures you meet your metric goals, sustain improvement, and have a positive

3. Performance Management Transformation: Lessons Learned and Next Steps

team environment.

By Elaine D. Pulakos, Mariangela Battista

Management field into a less formal process designed

6.llLean Six Sigma: How to Improve Quality Management, Lean Analytics, Lean Enterprise, Lean Startup, Kanban, Kaizen, and Increase Performance

to encourage employee behaviors that actually drive

By Lionel Young (Author), Glenn Bulthuis (Narrator),

performance. This book takes a practical approach to the

Matteo Mozzato (Publisher)

Recently, new ideas have transformed the Performance

current and future state of performance management across the organizational landscape. Case studies from

Managing a team is a challenging task, but improving

Toyota, Patagonia, Medtronic, GoGo Inflight, and AbbVie,

your team’s efficiency and productivity can seem like

alongside research and commentary by thought

an impossible one. Well, that couldn’t be further from

leaders in the field, showcase how organizations are

the truth. Revolutionary agile methods for managing a

taking control and redesigning their performance

team have been a hit in the corporate world, however

management processes.

finding the right ones can be tricky.

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