Although we might no be aware of it, we have been evaluated from the time of birth when our length and weight are compared to those of the average newborn. In preschool and school, we are evaluated for our academic performance and social development. Our teachers are judged for their educational skills and interactions with those in their classes, and school administrators are likewise evaluated for their own accomplishments and the accomplishments of the entire school.
We continue to be evaluated throughout our working lives. From CEOs whose actions and results are commented on by a variety of stakeholders, to employees in the mailroom, we all want our performances to be judged fairly. And managers should realize that the employee performance evaluations that they use to judge their staff also reflect who and what they are. They are not only judging their employees but also being judged by them.
I believe that we should be accountable for achieving goals that are attainable and for which adequate resources have been allocated, but that we should not be criticized for our inability to adhere to unreasonable performance demands.
Many of us are familiar with the SMART principles of establishing objectives for employees:
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Reasonable
Timely
I would also like to see reviews that are FAIR:
Fruitful
Accurate
Informative
Responsible
Employee performance evaluations can either create positive and productive working environments or negatively impact company objectives and employee morale. As an employee who is a manager and has a manager, I want to provide and receive reviews that are knowledgeable and insightful. Although I have to admit that I dislike being criticized, I know when the criticism is warranted and when it is based on inaccurate perception. If a review is a true dialogue rather than a manager's monologue, it can help both parties.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Sunday, August 5, 2007
How Much Connectivity Is Too Much?
Is constant connectivity crucial to modern business? According to a recent commercial on television and You Tube, “connectile dysfunction” is more than just a competitive disadvantage - it is a social embarrassment.
While I was having lunch with a friend a few weeks ago, I realized just how connected we are today. Every few minutes, he stopped to check new email and telephone messages on his Blackberry. Another friend told me that her company is installing a VOIP telephone system which will forward messages from an employee’s office phone to that person’s PC, laptop, cell phone or other mobile device. And another friend of mine is constantly receiving business calls outside of normal working hours on her cell phone.
When instant messaging, text messaging, Internet video and music, and social networking are added to the mix, the landscape of 21st century business is changing significantly.
Before this technological explosion, basically only members of occupations such as law enforcement, medical, and other emergency workers had to be available 24/7. Now, this situation has been extended to a much larger segment of the workforce. Real estate agents, mortgage brokers, entrepreneurs, accountants, lawyers, salespeople, engineers and many others seem to be constantly on call.
What effect does this connectivity have on employees? A recent study performed at the MIT Sloan School of Management found that ninety percent of employees at an unnamed financial services firm felt a “compulsion” to constantly check their Blackberry. I know that when I am at a conference or on vacation, I check the messages on my work telephone and my email as do many of my friends and colleagues.
What about future connectivity? As Dr. Alan Kay, one of the developers of the modern workstation, aptly stated, "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." And the future is being invented as you’re reading this article.
While I was having lunch with a friend a few weeks ago, I realized just how connected we are today. Every few minutes, he stopped to check new email and telephone messages on his Blackberry. Another friend told me that her company is installing a VOIP telephone system which will forward messages from an employee’s office phone to that person’s PC, laptop, cell phone or other mobile device. And another friend of mine is constantly receiving business calls outside of normal working hours on her cell phone.
When instant messaging, text messaging, Internet video and music, and social networking are added to the mix, the landscape of 21st century business is changing significantly.
Before this technological explosion, basically only members of occupations such as law enforcement, medical, and other emergency workers had to be available 24/7. Now, this situation has been extended to a much larger segment of the workforce. Real estate agents, mortgage brokers, entrepreneurs, accountants, lawyers, salespeople, engineers and many others seem to be constantly on call.
What effect does this connectivity have on employees? A recent study performed at the MIT Sloan School of Management found that ninety percent of employees at an unnamed financial services firm felt a “compulsion” to constantly check their Blackberry. I know that when I am at a conference or on vacation, I check the messages on my work telephone and my email as do many of my friends and colleagues.
What about future connectivity? As Dr. Alan Kay, one of the developers of the modern workstation, aptly stated, "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." And the future is being invented as you’re reading this article.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Ten Marketing Mistakes to Avoid
Here are ten common marketing mistakes that attorneys and other professional service providers make:
1. Market sporadically without a plan.
2. Fail to differentiate yourself from the competition.
3. Overlook valuable speaking and publishing opportunities.
4. Lose touch with qualified new prospects.
5. Abandon your marketing effort when you get busy.
6. Focus on only one or two marketing channels without a fully integrated program
7. Waste too much marketing time talking to other industry professionals.
8. Limit PR to the announcement of new hires.
9. Ignore state bar or industry guidelines on advertising best practices.
10. Terminate a long-term marketing program after the initial campaign.
Avoid these simple mistakes and you will see a dramatic improvement in your marketing efforts.
This is an excerpt from the book Courting Your Clients: The Essential Guide to Legal Marketing (http://www.legalexpertconnections.com/courtingyourclients.html) by Margaret Grisdela, President of Legal Expert Connections. You can visit her website at www.legalexpertconnections.com and her blog at www.rainmakingclub.com. She is a well recognized consultant with a national clientele of legal and litigation support providers.
Note: Although this article was written for members of professional services firms, her advice is applicable to a broad range of industries.
1. Market sporadically without a plan.
2. Fail to differentiate yourself from the competition.
3. Overlook valuable speaking and publishing opportunities.
4. Lose touch with qualified new prospects.
5. Abandon your marketing effort when you get busy.
6. Focus on only one or two marketing channels without a fully integrated program
7. Waste too much marketing time talking to other industry professionals.
8. Limit PR to the announcement of new hires.
9. Ignore state bar or industry guidelines on advertising best practices.
10. Terminate a long-term marketing program after the initial campaign.
Avoid these simple mistakes and you will see a dramatic improvement in your marketing efforts.
This is an excerpt from the book Courting Your Clients: The Essential Guide to Legal Marketing (http://www.legalexpertconnections.com/courtingyourclients.html) by Margaret Grisdela, President of Legal Expert Connections. You can visit her website at www.legalexpertconnections.com and her blog at www.rainmakingclub.com. She is a well recognized consultant with a national clientele of legal and litigation support providers.
Note: Although this article was written for members of professional services firms, her advice is applicable to a broad range of industries.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Comments and Suggestions
I never realized how many people that I know have friends, relatives, or acquaintances who were victimized by employee theft. Because my objective is to make this blog relevant to as many people as possible, I welcome your comments and suggestions for future articles.
If you have expertise in a business field that would be of interest to the readers and would like to write an article, please let me know. If I believe that the article should be published on this blog, I will also include a few sentences about you and your company and links to your website or any appropriate books of yours that have been published and are on Amazon.
You may contact me at nwolpin@hotmail.com.
If you have expertise in a business field that would be of interest to the readers and would like to write an article, please let me know. If I believe that the article should be published on this blog, I will also include a few sentences about you and your company and links to your website or any appropriate books of yours that have been published and are on Amazon.
You may contact me at nwolpin@hotmail.com.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Who's Minding Your Company's Business?
Are you watching you company’s finances or are you trusting your employees to do it for you?
No matter how trustworthy you consider your bookkeeper or accounting staff, you must establish some system of checks and balances. Answer “yes” or “no” to the following questions to give you some idea of how vulnerable your company is to employee fraud.
1. Your bookkeeper has the authority to approve invoices for payment.
2. Your bookkeeper issues checks and reconciles your checking account.
3. You don’t have a policy to flag unusually high amounts on employee expense
reports.
4. You believe that your employees are honest and never conduct surprise audits.
5. Your employees would be uncomfortable reporting suspicious behavior.
The more “yes” answers you have to this quiz, the more likely you are to be victimized by one of the three most prevalent forms of employee fraud — misappropriation of assets, corruption, and financial statement fraud. While Enron, Worldcom, and other large corporations have received a great deal of publicity for financial statement fraud, in smaller companies the most frequent type of employee theft is misappropriation (payments to fictitious vendors, overpayment to vendors with kickbacks, or checks for unearned overtime).
How can you protect your business? There is no simple answer because each situation is different, but here are some internal control practices that can minimize the opportunities for employee fraud:
1. Separate responsibilities so that:
the person who opens mail with payments doesn’t record receipt of payments
the person who approves invoices doesn’t issue the checks
the person who issues the checks doesn’t open and reconcile the checking
statements
2. Have all financial transactions reviewed and approved by an appropriate
manager
3. Conduct surprise financial audits
4. Develop and enforce a code of ethics with appropriate penalties
5. Encourage employees to report suspicious behavior
6. Establish an anonymous employee hotline if possible
7. Create an atmosphere in which employees feel valued and fairly paid
Fraud can hit your company where it hurts the most — in the bottom line. So, if you don’t mind your business, someone else may do it for you.
No matter how trustworthy you consider your bookkeeper or accounting staff, you must establish some system of checks and balances. Answer “yes” or “no” to the following questions to give you some idea of how vulnerable your company is to employee fraud.
1. Your bookkeeper has the authority to approve invoices for payment.
2. Your bookkeeper issues checks and reconciles your checking account.
3. You don’t have a policy to flag unusually high amounts on employee expense
reports.
4. You believe that your employees are honest and never conduct surprise audits.
5. Your employees would be uncomfortable reporting suspicious behavior.
The more “yes” answers you have to this quiz, the more likely you are to be victimized by one of the three most prevalent forms of employee fraud — misappropriation of assets, corruption, and financial statement fraud. While Enron, Worldcom, and other large corporations have received a great deal of publicity for financial statement fraud, in smaller companies the most frequent type of employee theft is misappropriation (payments to fictitious vendors, overpayment to vendors with kickbacks, or checks for unearned overtime).
How can you protect your business? There is no simple answer because each situation is different, but here are some internal control practices that can minimize the opportunities for employee fraud:
1. Separate responsibilities so that:
the person who opens mail with payments doesn’t record receipt of payments
the person who approves invoices doesn’t issue the checks
the person who issues the checks doesn’t open and reconcile the checking
statements
2. Have all financial transactions reviewed and approved by an appropriate
manager
3. Conduct surprise financial audits
4. Develop and enforce a code of ethics with appropriate penalties
5. Encourage employees to report suspicious behavior
6. Establish an anonymous employee hotline if possible
7. Create an atmosphere in which employees feel valued and fairly paid
Fraud can hit your company where it hurts the most — in the bottom line. So, if you don’t mind your business, someone else may do it for you.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
How Safe Is Your Company's Wallet
When I was 18, I went to a dance at an Ivy League University. I remember dancing a lot and speaking to several people. Of course, my purse would have been in the way while I danced, so I put it down on one of the chairs without a second thought. It was a nondescript black purse surrounded by many others, and it never occurred to me that it would not be safe.
At the end of the evening when my friends and I were ready to leave, I retrieved the purse. Nothing looked amiss, and it was only when I opened the wallet did I realize what had happened. All of the bills were gone, but fortunately there was enough change to get me home. I felt stupid for being so trusting, and now I guard my wallet much more carefully.
What happened to me happens every day on an even greater scale to businesses. My $30 loss pales in comparison to the losses sustained by businesses every day. According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners http://www.acfe.com/ over $650 billion was lost by US businesses in one year as a result of employee fraud.
And it’s not only big businesses such as Enron, WorldCom, and Adelphia that are hurt. An employee of the Miami-Dade Florida Water and Sewer Authority pled guilty to defrauding the agency of $1 million dollars earmarked for bulk mailings. A former bookkeeper for a Scottsdale, Arizona, cryonics company was accused of stealing $177,000 from the company to invest in a bar. In a Chicago suburb, an office manager embezzled $143,000 from an auto parts dealer.
Statistics show that small businesses are more vulnerable and more likely to be hurt by employee theft, and the person most likely to embezzle is frequently the most trusted employee — the employee that comes in early, stays late, and rarely takes a day off. What is perhaps the most horrifying statistic revealed by the ACFE is that most cases are discovered by accident rather than by any system of controls.
How can business owners protect themselves from employee fraud? Read my next posting on this blog for some practical advice.
At the end of the evening when my friends and I were ready to leave, I retrieved the purse. Nothing looked amiss, and it was only when I opened the wallet did I realize what had happened. All of the bills were gone, but fortunately there was enough change to get me home. I felt stupid for being so trusting, and now I guard my wallet much more carefully.
What happened to me happens every day on an even greater scale to businesses. My $30 loss pales in comparison to the losses sustained by businesses every day. According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners http://www.acfe.com/ over $650 billion was lost by US businesses in one year as a result of employee fraud.
And it’s not only big businesses such as Enron, WorldCom, and Adelphia that are hurt. An employee of the Miami-Dade Florida Water and Sewer Authority pled guilty to defrauding the agency of $1 million dollars earmarked for bulk mailings. A former bookkeeper for a Scottsdale, Arizona, cryonics company was accused of stealing $177,000 from the company to invest in a bar. In a Chicago suburb, an office manager embezzled $143,000 from an auto parts dealer.
Statistics show that small businesses are more vulnerable and more likely to be hurt by employee theft, and the person most likely to embezzle is frequently the most trusted employee — the employee that comes in early, stays late, and rarely takes a day off. What is perhaps the most horrifying statistic revealed by the ACFE is that most cases are discovered by accident rather than by any system of controls.
How can business owners protect themselves from employee fraud? Read my next posting on this blog for some practical advice.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Whose Web Page Is It Anyhow?
Have you ever wondered whether anyone else is using your website material for their own purposes? Or whether your web writer(s) have used any verbiage from someone else’s web page? With all of the information available on the Internet and the millions of web pages available for public view, finding violations of copyright and enforcing them may be difficult.
From time to time, I have found plagiarism on the Internet and I’m sure that there are many undiscovered examples. Last year, I decided to compare the website content that I developed for a previous employer to other web pages. I was surprised when I found that a page on another company’s website was exactly the same as mine with one exception. I mentioned the name of my employer, and the other company substituted the word, “we” for a company name.
You, too, can find out whether your web content has been copied. Just go the http://www.copyscape.com/ and enter the url of any web page that you want to compare. This is the free version and it will return a limited number of similar pages but includes those that are most similar or even identical.
If you do find another web page that is suspiciously like yours, the date of publication on the web becomes important. You can find out approximately when pages were uploaded or changed at the Internet Wayback Machine at www.archive.org/index.php. After you enter the url of the page(s) involved, you will be given the dates that changes were made to that page.
As you can see, it’s easy to use material from one page on another, but it’s also easy to get caught.
From time to time, I have found plagiarism on the Internet and I’m sure that there are many undiscovered examples. Last year, I decided to compare the website content that I developed for a previous employer to other web pages. I was surprised when I found that a page on another company’s website was exactly the same as mine with one exception. I mentioned the name of my employer, and the other company substituted the word, “we” for a company name.
You, too, can find out whether your web content has been copied. Just go the http://www.copyscape.com/ and enter the url of any web page that you want to compare. This is the free version and it will return a limited number of similar pages but includes those that are most similar or even identical.
If you do find another web page that is suspiciously like yours, the date of publication on the web becomes important. You can find out approximately when pages were uploaded or changed at the Internet Wayback Machine at www.archive.org/index.php. After you enter the url of the page(s) involved, you will be given the dates that changes were made to that page.
As you can see, it’s easy to use material from one page on another, but it’s also easy to get caught.
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