Visualized.Feel.Abundance

Hey Folks,

Welcome back to our new series - Build Your Career Like A Business. If you have decided to build your career like a business, most important thing to do first is to set some goals and get a business plan (or should I say career plan). There are 5 questions that you can ask yourself to help your planning.

Decide Who You Want To Be
You have to decide who you want to be in 5, 10, 15, 20 years time in the future.

Most employees I have met, including myself when I was younger, hate it whenever they were asked this questions. Some even dread the question. During appraisals and goal setting exercises, most employees would happily fill in the 1-year goal but often left the 3 year goal and 5 year goal blank. And their 1-year goal is often “To do my best and deliver my KPI or targets set”. Which tells me that they have no idea who they want to be!

The standard excuse given was “Why worry about what I want to be in 5 years time? I don’t even know what is going to happen tomorrow!” Or “It’s just a waste of time, do you think management cares about what we want to be? Just give me my pay increment and I’ll be happy”. The thing is, if you know who you want to be, you will never have to worry about what to do tomorrow.

Oh, just in case you are still thinking that working hard will get you a good pay increment, you might want to check out this post - “Misconceptions of Key Performance Indicators, Promotions and Pay Increments“.

What Do You Want To Be Known For
If you are just starting out, you may not have any idea of what you want to be known for. So the best course of action in the earlier years in your career is stick to being an asset. Check out this article to learn more about it - “How To Be An Asset And Not A Liability To Your Company“.

When you have established yourself as an asset in your company, you would have some solid work experience and already getting constant feedback about your work performances, strength and weaknesses. It is now that you should look into developing your strength and uniqueness. Here are some categories of strengths, just to name a few:

The Operator - People with this strength have the ability to micro-manage all sorts of day-to-day issues that happens in the company. They can multi-task with ease and thrive on details. Any well-run operations need one such talent.

The Planner - People with this strength are blessed with foresight and creativity. They have the ability to draw out strategic plans and directions that will help a company achieve its goals set far into the future. This strength is common to senior managements.

The Executor - People with this strength can take any plan or idea and make things happen. Companies love such traits when considering hiring someone to launch a campaign, product or services.

The Troubleshooter - People with this strength thrives on solving problems. Any and all problems can be solved and will be solved. The only worry they have is running out of problems to solve. A CEO hired to restructure a company typically has this strength.

Some of us have strength in more then one category, you could create your own unique strength by develop and combining them together.

To Be Continued
To keep this post short and sweet (500 - 750 words), we will talk about the other 3 questions in the next post. But before I sign off, I want you to understand something important here:

“Building a successful career does not mean staying in one job for 30 years.
Many successful careers were build over 20 years
by moving from company to company and delivering the massive values you create
when and where it is needed.”

Think about it.

Stay Positive,
James

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Hey Folks,

I have taken great pains (4 post) to set the stage for what I am going to share with you today. I did it not to “fill in” posts but I sincerely feel that to really appreciate what I am going to say in this post, you need to understand the real situation. So take some time to read them before you continue with this post:

Understanding The “Boss” Mentality
Understanding The Effects Of Globalization And Outsourcing
Understanding The Effects Of The New Economy On Our Salary
Misconceptions of Key Performance Indicators, Promotions and Pay Increments

Summary Of Prior Post

“We live in an era where the economy dictates that companies pay their employees what they are worth and that worth is determined by how much a company is willing to pay as cost of the products or services they produce. Anytime the an employee ceases to produce the value they were paid for, the company would be forced to reevaluate the need for that employee.”

Who’s Considered An Asset
To be an asset in a company, it doesn’t always mean that you need to climb the corporate ladder (although it is a common result of being an asset). Every company needs assets at every level of their company structure. You don’t always have to be a manager or departmental head to be an asset. For example:

A production line worker that is always on time, meets his daily production target, helps fellow colleagues in times of need and encourages and keeps the team in high morale is an asset.

A housekeeper keeping the office and toilets pristinely clean everyday creates an environment so comfortable and conducive to work that every employee feels good when reaching office is an asset.

How To Be An Asset
What I am going to show you is a series of thought provoking questions that will guide you to:

1) Discover and determine your current value in your company
2) Find your direction and balance in your company
3) Become a positive influence in your company

Discover and determine your current value in your company
First, you need to asked yourself these basic questions:

1) For what purpose where you hired for?
- You can check the job description for your position or alternatively, check with your boss. You need to know exactly what your role is before you can determined your value.

2) How do I determine the value I have created for my company?
- For some jobs such as sales, this is simple, the amount of sales they bring is their value. For some jobs such as accounting and human resource, it is not as simple to determine. In such cases, the KPI will be an invaluable tool to justify your value. If you do not have a KPI set for you, talk to your boss and get one.

3) What values have I produced for the company?
- Again for jobs such as sales, just check your figures. The rest will depend mainly on whether they have met their KPI’s set for them or their department. The minimum that every employee could do is to meet their KPI as this alone tells your boss that you are not a liability.

Find your direction and balance in your company
Once you have the answers to the above, you have to ask yourself these questions next:

1) What is your vision of yourself in the company 5 years from now?
- Would you like to remain in the same position or proceed to the next level? Understand what that vision of yours will implies. If you decide to stay at where you are, you will need to understand that there will be a cap to how much salary you can earn in the long run. And if it is higher salary that you desire, you will need to improve your skill set (management skill, communications skill, etc) to advance.

- For example, a production line worker will never earn $5000 a month but a production line manager has the capacity to do that. However, he will need knowledge of how to run a production line, quality control measures and procedure, people management, scheduling, etc in order to advance.

2) Are you happy with that vision and is that what your heart desires?
- I know some employees who are perfectly happy to stay where they are while some may decide to scale the corporate ladder. Whichever is your preference, you need to be at ease with that decision. A happy and grateful employee is productive, well liked and becomes an asset while a resentful employee spreads negativity and affects the productivity everyone else around him and becomes a liability.

- Both the happy and resentful employee is in similar situation, draws similar pay and is equally productive (quantitatively) but they are viewed in a differently in light of their actions, which is a result of their thoughts.

3) What are the values you need to create to get where you want to be?
- If you desire to escalate, find out the job description or KPI of that position and acquire the necessary skill. Talk to your boss, he should be able to facilitate. If that position is higher then where your boss currently is, helping him to get there before you could help you greatly.

- If you desire to stay put, create you own unique proposition. Be the most productive employee, most helpful employee, the most innovative employee, etc.

Become a positive influence in your company
What ever you choose, remember to deliver the basic value you were hired for (meet KPI) and be a positive influence on your team, department and company. By looking towards the positive side of things and events, you put yourself in a position to spot opportunities and capitalized on them.

Here are some positive influence tips:

a) Communicate In The Right Direction - If you have doubts or negative feedbacks, convey upwards (to your bosses). If you have positive ideas and encouragements, convey downwards (to your staffs, colleagues).

b) Volunteer First - When management asked for volunteers, be the first to volunteer for the task that you know you are proficient in. You kill 2 birds by getting brownie points for volunteering and avoid being tasked something that you aren’t able to handle.

c) Help Yourself First - Always complete your own task first, then extend whatever help to the rest of the team. If team work is part of your KPI, clarify with your boss which comes first (teamwork or own task and write it down).

d) Keep A Smile On - Maintaining a smile on your face at work can do wonders to you and all that is around you. It is like an infectious virus then everyone will catch and it make people happy

e) Share Abundantly - Share your experience, knowledge and skills with your colleagues. By sharing abundantly, you will attract others to share with you, even your boss. I assure you that you will gain more then you have given out. For example, I share 5 tips with 30 colleagues and 5 of them share with me 1 tips each. Net total is that I have 10 tips now, 25 of them have the 5 they had while the other 5 have 6 each.

f) Always Bring At Least One Solution For A Problem - Never give your boss problems. If you must, bring along some probable solutions. If you have only 1 probable solution, add a solution you know your boss won’t take so you give him a choice.

“Don’t find fault, find a remedy;
anybody can complain. - Henry Ford”

g) Don’t Leave Problems Alone - I have seen many clerks manually extracting figures from their system by printing out reports then manually collating figures into an Excel spreadsheet. They spent 2-3 days a month doing just that! An elegant solution is to get your IT department or vendor to create a automated report that will takes just minutes to get the same report. Even when a cost is involved, I believe it will be justified in the long run.

“Most people spend more time
and energy going around problems
than in trying to solve them. - Henry Ford”

h) Run It Like You Own It - Always think of how a certain decision, action, process, etc will benefit the company (not yourself). Only when you start running the company like you own it, the benefits will come a full circle to benefit you.

“If there is any one secret of success,
it lies in the ability to get the other person’s
point of view and see things from that person’s angle
as well as from your own. - Henry Ford”

i) Never Work Hard, Work Smart - Working hard without working smart is the dumb mans way of earning a living. An employee working smart can produce the same result in much less time then an employee working hard. Using the same example in (g), the smart employee with automate the report has 3 more work day per month then the other who works hard (hard manual labor). If you spot and solve a problem that saves 10 man-minute per employee per day for a company of 1000 employees, you save your company 48,000 man hour each year henceforth! That is roughly 18 years your annual value to the company, imagine that!

j) Work Hard Only When Necessary - Sometime the company finds itself in some situation where they need you to draw a little deeper into your reserves to help them out! Do it, you will be appreciated. What you don’t need to do is to work late everyday even when you don’t need too. It could be deemed as inefficient.

k) Never Say “No” Right Away - When given a task or problem to consider, ask for some time and think about it seriously. It lends credence to you that you have given it due thought, even when you know from experience that it cannot be done, and sometimes, you might just find a solution that you haven’t thought of.

“I am looking for a lot of men
who have an infinite capacity to
not know what can’t be done. - Henry Ford”

l) You Always Have A Little More Then You Think - When you thought you have given all you have, just empty your cup one more time, reset your objective view and take a look at the whole team, department, company, processes again. You are bound to find something more to improve on.

“The man who will use his skill and
constructive imagination to see how
much he can give for a dollar,
instead of how little he can give for a dollar,
is bound to succeed. - Henry Ford”

I have shared a great many tips with you folks and I do hope you have benefited from it. If you have other tips or opinions, please feel free to contribute here. And nope, I am not going to talk about liability. Talking about it will just get you focused on it and I would prefer that you focus on being an asset.

With this post, I end my series of 5 post on “Are You An Asset Or Liability To Your Company?“.

Love,
James

PS: Folks, the key points in this post is Perspective and Gratitude. To understand and be thankful, allow a soul to drop whatever resentment is holding you back and gives you room to achieve greater things in life even when your skills stays the same. Think about it.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Hey Folks,

Let us do a recap of what we have talked about so far:

1) A Company (and by extension the bosses) will pay only enough to keep you on the job.
2) Globalization and Outsourcing gives a company alternative solutions to his manpower cost which can be significantly cheaper.
3) In the New Economy, you are paid a salary which is a function of what a company is willing pay to create/manufacture a service or product.

Now that I have given you a sense of what are the factors that could influence your bosses human resource policies (such as salary), it is time to take a look at how he is going to measure your performance.

Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
KPIs used to be the yardstick for measuring whether an organization has met it’s goals. It was later used as a yardstick for key employees and more recently, companies has adopted it for all employees in general.

It could come in various forms but it is generally a set of goals that would determine your performance for that year. Some call it goal setting exercise and others call it target setting. I just refer to it as KPI and it is usually an agreed target between boss and employee.

Since both party agreed on the KPI, there should not be any miscommunication right? Wrong! Both party only agree on the KPI, what most party failed to convey was what happens after KPI is met or not met.

The Employees Idea Of KPI
To an average employee, meeting the KPI means that they are entitled to the average pay increment and bonus. Exceeding the KPI means that they are entitled to better than average increment, better than average bonus and a good chance of promotion!

To some employee, if they were given a high standard of KPI, they may interpret as meeting the KPI means an automatic entitlement to a good increment, good bonus and a very good chance of promotion!

The Bosses Idea of KPI
Unfortunately for the employees, the standard interpretation of the situation for the average boss is this:

1) An employee is given a set of KPI that he should have no problem meeting for his given salary.
2) Meeting the KPI means that the employee is only good enough for the pay he is given.
3) Exceeding the KPI means the employee is good enough to be considered for pay adjustment and a bonus.
4) An employee will be considered for promotion when they consistently exceed their KPI and shows potential to handle more responsibilities.

As you can see there is a gap between expectations and that is where unhappiness usually begins.

So What Is Wrong?
Every company practices KPI and renumeration in a slightly different way but one thing I notice is that majority never say what happens if employees meet their KPI and the employees never ask! They usually quote “Your salary adjustments and bonus will depend on your KPI”. It doesn’t say exactly that “You will get your increment only if you exceed your KPI” but thats what usually happens.

So why don’t they say it out loud? I am not exactly sure but I have an idea.

It’s About Mindset
When the old economy model make way for the New Economy, the average employee either did not realize what has changed or they realized but do not know how to change or do not want to change. Maybe you can tell me your reason.

So why doesn’t the boss make it clear? I tend to believe that during the transition, it was abundantly clear for the companies with overpaid staffs. The signal was in the form of retrenchment and pay cuts. For the rest (such as new companies), I am not entirely sure. Maybe my readers who are also bosses can enlighten me in this aspect.

Cheers
James

PS: Next post is what everyone employee is waiting for! So stay tuned.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Hey Folks,

In our last post, we mentioned that New Economy was born as a result of Globalization and Outsourcing. Here’s a recap of what a New Economy is in general:

Definition of New Economy
“The general idea is that a business should focus on those areas of its operation which are critical to its success and where it has a competitive advantage. Other areas of its operation should be outsourced, typically using technology as the facilitator.

In a developed economy, the critical success factors to a leading business are likely to be intellectual things such as brands, products specifications and technical capabilities. Many routine business functions (such as manufacturing and customer service
desks) may be outsourced.” - Wikipedia On New Economy

Salary In The Past
In the past (prior to 1990s in US, 2000s in Asia Pacific region, other developed countries somewhere in between), we get pay rise simply because we expect our boss to give one and we did do our job. Consequently, many companies ended up with clerical officers who worked for 30 year drawing a monthly salary of $5000 or more.

Although these people were very experience, the salary could not be justified due to the nature of their job. If the clerk process 20 application forms a day for 5 days a week. That would be a processing overhead of $10.41 per form (480 forms a month for $5000) which is ridiculous!

In this model, the companies either have to keep increasing the cost of their product/services or suffer a narrower profit margin each year. At some point, older staffs would be retrenched and younger staffs are recruited where the cycle will repeat yet again some years down the road. Hence, older employees usually suffers the Axe.

Salary In New Economy
In the New Economy, Companies used the cost of their goods and/or services to decide how much to pay for their labor.

Taking the same clerical officer example, the company can decide that they will not pay more then $1 per form as processing fee and with computerization, the clerk should process 60 forms a day. Hence the salary for that position should be capped at $1440.

If the same clerk wish to get a better pay, she will have to justify with a better work efficiency (processing 80 forms a day) or upgrading her skills to a higher value position (sales consultant, customer relations officer, etc).

In this model, the salary is tied to a job’s value and not an employees seniority and older employees tend to be able to keep their job.

Who Is The Boss
The following quote from Henry Ford rings more truth today then it rang almost a century ago:

“It is not the employer who pays the wages.
Employers only handle the money.
It is the customer who pays the wages.” - Henry Ford

The customer decides what is a fair price to pay and companies will decide what is a fair labor cost to them based on the amount the customer is willing to part with. Doesn’t it give a new meaning to the phrase “The Customer Is Always Right?“.

So What Is Your Situation Now
Now that you understand our current economy better, you probably could appreciate why you were getting your current pay. No one get overpaid in the New Economy, you are always paid what the company thinks you are worth. If you want more pay, you will have to fight for it. It will never drop from the sky if you are not willing to put in the effort to get it.

Oh, if you think you are overpaid by your company or that your company is still adopting to the old model, you better make some plans or raise your value right now before bosses realized the situation.

Love,
James

Disclaimer: I’m not an expert in human resource or pay and I am not attempting to provide an interpretation of historical salary trends. This article is providing a perspective on why salaries are paid the way it is paid in our economy today (2007) in order to encourage employees to understand the situation, adjust their mindset, adapt and improve their current standing with their company and bosses.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Hey Folks,

Today lets look at how Globalization and Outsourcing can influence a companies human resource policies.

What Is Globalization
Globalization is a huge topic. But for our purpose, we will just talk about the Social aspect of it.

In our highly globalized economy today, our bosses actually have a choice of whether he wants to hire a local or foreign talent for each job position he has in his company. The deciding factor usually comes down to who offers a better value and if there are any laws/policies limiting his choices. As such, the following example is a common situation found in most developed countries:

Case Study: An IT specialist from Singapore draws a salary of S$3000. His boss could decide that hiring an IT specialist from India or China of equivalent skill set for S$2000 looks more attractive. So now, the IT specialist from Singapore has to justify to his boss why he is of better value then his foreign counterpart!

This phenomenal is happening across the full spectrum of jobs from road sweeper to office clerk to executives, managers, professionals and even CEO’s. And it is by no fault of theirs that they are in such situation. The world just gotten smaller, well, at least more inter-connected.

What Is Outsourcing
Outsourcing is utilizing experts from outside the entity to perform specific tasks that the entity once perform itself.

In the past, companies used to outsourcing only non-core operation where the cost of installing, manning and running the operation does not justify the undertaking. Help desk, IT support, Data Centre Operations, housekeeping are some famous operations that companies regularly outsourced.

In recent year, companies have started to outsource their finance, logistics and even staffs (via staff augmentation, also known as contract staffs). Any department that does not add value to the company and could be supplied by an entity specializing in the management of that operation/function could be outsourced.

What Is The Impact
The child that was born from Globalization and Outsourcing is called “New Economy“.

“The general idea is that a business should focus on those areas of its operation which are critical to its success and where it has a competitive advantage. Other areas of its operation should be outsourced, typically using technology as the facilitator.

In a developed economy, the critical success factors to a leading business are likely to be intellectual things such as brands, products specifications and technical capabilities. Many routine business functions (such as manufacturing and customer service desks) may be outsourced.” - Wikipedia On New Economy

What these means is that in today’s economy, anyone can be replaced if you do not have a skill or value unique to yourself that is beneficial to your company. Sounds scary but it is the truth.

What you need to understand here is that these are forces beyond your bosses ability to control, they can either flow with it or drown in it. Given those 2 options (flow or drown), what would you do?

Let’s Play Boss
“A small-medium enterprise (SME) has a finance department of 3 local accounts clerks and an Accountant. The boss knows that the clerks are demanding increments every year and their salary is already beyond market rate at $2500.

He finds out that foreign accounts clerk working locally are only asking for $1700 each with equivalent skill set and experience. If you were the boss, what would you do?

Then comes along a outsourcing company that offers him a book-keeping package that replaces the 3 clerks, closes his accounts faster, includes additional reports, no worries of staff turn-overs and guaranteed safe backup of all data at the equivalent of $1000 per accounts clerk. If you were the boss, what would you do?”

Summary
I know todays topic is on the serious side and a bitter pill to swallow but it is fact and it is the truth. The earlier you realized it, the less you will complain. The less you complain, the more likely you will find a solution to better your value in the company and in your bosses eyes.

Lastly, I would love to hear what you would do and what you opinion is on the “Let’s Play Boss” scenario. The floor is yours.

Love,
James

PS1: I left out a lot of details linking Globalization and Outsourcing to New economy. To include all the detail, I would need at least a couple of 2000 word post just on Globalization alone.

PS2: I am dying to jump right to the last post where I can share how you can be an asset to your company but without the first few post painting the real world situation, I am quite certain many reader won’t take those suggestions seriously. So bare with me, 2 more post and the golden nuggets will be out.

Popularity: 8% [?]