6 ways to get the most out of your job

1) Treat everyone differently

Forget books and advice on how to manage. The best thing you can do is understand your colleagues or employees and treat each one individually. Some people are more receptive to recognition and praise. Some people just don’t like to be praised as much. Some people like to socialize at work. Some prefer to do their work and not talk to anyone. Some people stress out too much, some don’t stress at all. Some go to work to do what they are supposed to do. Some go to work ready to find new more efficient ways to do what they are supposed to do.

Get the maximum out of your colleagues and employees by analyzing those patterns and applying them to each one.

2) Like your job

It is very important when you wake up in the morning to be happy for what you do. If you don’t like your job, if you find yourself struggling to get out of bed to go to work, if you complain about your boss, if you think what you are doing is not what you want to do, then the chances are that you are not as productive as you should be. So either change your way of thinking or search for a new job

3) Distinguish between work and life

When you turn off your computer at the end of the day, forget work. I am not saying that you should make yourself not available for urgent matters but do not bring the  work problems home. Make sure that the few hours you get to spend with your family are dedicated to them. You can worry about clients the next morning.

4) Be efficient

When you have a lot of tasks to accomplish make sure to prioritize and create a timeline for when to finish. This will allow you to manage your time more efficiently and prevent you from working overtime.

5) Talk to your boss

They are human too. I am not asking you to become best friends with them, but when you have a problem that you think that affects your job let them know. If you have a new idea, tell them. If you think that something needs to be changed, provide a plan on how to change it and show them how it will benefit the team or organization.

6) Stand up

If you are sitting on a chair in front of a computer all day, get up for 2-3 minutes every hour. Talk to somebody about your weekend, about last night. Let your blood flow and your mind relax before getting back to work

The need to be more efficient!

My recent adventure with obtaining an Apostille (form of certification) from the Ministry of Justice in Cyprus is the main reason why I am writing this post today. Basically it is to concentrate on the need of a more efficient public service system. This is essential if we want to save money and not turn up like Greece.

My mission of the day was to obtain an apostille on a power of attorney document. The steps required to do that are as follows (in brackets are the steps I actually did):

1. Write and sign the power of attorney document. (I went to the Ministry of Justice without doing that first since I had no idea what an Apostille is)

2. Take the document to the local officer to certify that your signature is true (I went to the Ministry of Justice without doing that before because I did not know)

3. Take the document to the District Officer to certify that the signature of the local officer is true (I went for the 3rd time to the Ministry of Justice after obtaining first certification only to tell me that I need to go to the District Officer)

4. Take the document to the ministry of Justice to obtain Apostille (I did that after spending 4 hours the first day and 1.30 hours the second day)

Such an inefficient process that if you try making a process map out of it, you would only find one Value-Added activity and 3 Non-Value added activities. No need to mention that at any of these stages ANYBODY ASKED ME TO PRESENT THEM WITH AN ID to prove that the name written on the document is mine.

The government is paying 5 people (local officer, district officer secretary, 3 people at ministry of justice) to carry out an activity that could very easily done by 2 people. One to check your ID and one to put a stamp on your document.

Furthermore, this process cost me and hundreds of other citizens hours of their productive time. A process full of wasteful activities that could be eliminated. Why is it so hard for the public sector to proceed into changes? Why do they have to be so inefficient and unproductive?

If it is so hard for them to make changes here is one thing I suggest: Close everything down and privatize everything. I am sure there are many enterpreneurs that would be happy to open businesses that will help citizens to carry out their tasks more efficiently. The force of competition will not allow them to procrastinate, lag or lack! The force of competition will force them to centralize all the processes whether that means putting all human resources in one building or using a central computer server.

As easy as 1,2,3. Saves money from the public sector, saves our time.

Numbers can lie

Smart statisticians, economists, CEOs can play with numbers to make them look good.

That is why companies play with their ROI models changing them whenever they feel they should. That is why executives spend a great deal of time choosing their words in the opening statements of the annual reports.

I got the idea for this post when I was reading InBusiness the other day and there was a section saying that the average monthly salary for men in Cyprus is €1,833 and for women about €1,580. I have always claimed that the “average” is not always the best type of measurement and in my humble opinion it is very wrong to use this for the average wage.

Let me explain myself:

In recording all wages, there are many outliers. Probably an average job in Cyprus would pay between €1100 to €2000. But there are many people who earn much more than that. Those outliers are always on the top side and not the bottom. We cannot have outliers on the bottom because according to regulations there is a minimum wage that needs to be paid. So for every person in the population the lowest wage you can find equals the minimum wage. On the other hand, there can be many outliers on the top side. There are people who earn € 5,000 a month, there are people who earn €10,000 and there are people who earn €30,000 a month. These figures unavoidably inflate the average salary giving a misrepresentation. All things considered I believe that the use of the median would probably be much more representative in cases of salaries.

Thinking about numbers, I also remembered an article I read about Lawrence Summers, ex-President of Harvard. If you ask pretty much anyone they would tell you that Mr. Summers claimed in a business lunch that “men are smarter than women”. What he actually said is that “there is greater variance in the intelligence of men than women”. Of course Mr. Summers is not stupid, he is actually very smart and he made his comment after years of research. Greater variance means that the tails of a normal curve of the IQ of men are a bit larger than the respective ones of the women. There might be more men than women who demonstrate a higher than normal IQ , but there are also more men than women who demonstrate lower than normal IQ.

Cyprus driving age

I was reading Politis newspaper online today, when my eyes fell on this new prospective law that was discussed in the Cyprus Parliament.  Two members of the Parliament proposed that we change the legal driving age in Cyprus from 18 to 17. Of course, that extra year, from 17 to 18 the acquirer of the new driving license would have to drive with an adult in the car. Their reasoning was that countries like the U.S, UK, Norway, Sweden and France have this law and they have fewer accidents per capita than Cyprus.

And here come my objections/ questions:

It is very naïve and very wrong to compare Cyprus with the U.S, the U.K, Norway and France. One cannot compare only one variable (in this case driving age) to examine the relationship with another variable (accidents per capita). There are a number of factors that play a major role in the number of accidents in a country.

Firstly, there is a major difference in terms of road infrastructure. Cyprus does not have the road infrastructure that U.S and U.K have. Thinking of accidents in Cyprus, a majority of them happen in streets that connect villages. These are usually roads without signs, and with very dangerous turns, and very narrow streets.

A second objection is the fact that the new drivers will have to drive with an adult in the car for the first year. As much as I would like to believe it, I can only see this happening for about a week if not less. Call it Cypriot attitude, call it Cypriot culture, call it whatever you want, I think that after the first week most parents would be very busy to ride in the car with their son/ daughter.

A third objection is the process of acquiring a drivers license in Cyprus. OK, the truth is that I have no proof, but I have heard of a lot of people that who have gotten their drivers license in an envelope. Why would we want to put more dangerous, inexperienced, immature drivers in the streets?

Fourth, why would we want to put more cars in the street? I can’t really project how much of a problem that would be (probably minimal) but in an already overcrowded with cars country, why do we want more people driving? The effort should be to push more people to ride the buses (that currently do not exist).

Fifth, there is another issue with the attitude towards Cyprus policing. Despite any laws and the consequences, Cypriots have a tendency to not see police as a strict regulatory body and will not care much of breaking any laws (e.g 17 year olds driving on their own).

Last but not least, 40% of the accidents happen in the age 15-24. If we pass this law are we really ready to put in practice what we say? Do we have the regulations, can the parents adopt their responsibilities, can the police control the 17 year olds? Will that extra year give them the required experience to decrease the number of accidents? Or will the extra year increase the number of accidents?

You can’t really build a beautiful house by start painting it first. You have to put the bricks and the cement, and the roof and then maybe you should start thinking of the color.

The power of information

Buying an electrical device

Before: You went to the store, you looked at your 10-15 choices, you eliminated 5 of them and then you asked the salesperson. Despite the fact that the salesperson had no idea what he was talking about, you are still convinced by his words. You buy the one he recommends.

Time needed: 1 hour

Now: You Google what you want and you come upon a little more than 1000 choices. After a while you eliminate some and you start reading reviews online. You eliminate another bunch of them and you are now left between 5 options. You read the reviews and weigh the pros and cons of each. You decide to go to the local store to check them out. You ask the salesperson opinion and you correct him on every specification he says because you know it better than him. You return home, get online and read reviews from another site. You finally make your decision. You know start reviewing websites to see which is the most secure to order from. After you pick the one, you put your credit card number only to find that this website does not accept your American Express. You get frustrated, but you manage to find another website that will accept your American Express. You order it and as soon as you place the order, you start thinking whether you made the right choice. You start reading reviews again and try to find positive reviews that will make you feel good about your choice. For the next 3-4 days you live by the window of your house waiting for Fed-Ex to arrive.

Time needed: 1 week – 4 months

 

You are sick:

Before: You call your doctor, make your appointment, visit the doctor, get your prescriptions, go home and wait to recover.

Time needed: Time you need to pick up the phone

Now: You get online. You google all your symptoms and come upon 10 possible diseases. You start thinking of how it could have started and reconsidering your symptoms. You come to the conclusion that you have a disease that affects 1 in 1000000 every year. You panic. You call your mum, dad, friends, boyfriend, girlfriend and you tell them about it. You then call the doctor, make an appointment, visit the doctor. Before the doctor asks you what the problem is, you state that you are sick with xxxxxxxx because you googled it. The doctor has a different idea, so you go to another doctor. You finally get convinced that you will be fine, take your medication, go home and wait to recover.

Time needed: Time needed to read about 100 websites

 

Wishing a friend happy birthday

Before: You have forgotten the last 3 years, but you remember today. You get your dusty phonebook out and you find the phone number of your friend. The number has changed since you last talked to him/ her, so you have to call the information line to get the new phone. You managed to call and wish Happy Birthday

Time needed: 20 minutes

Now: You put your username and password, you log in Facebook, you find your friend and write on their wall.

Time needed: 20 seconds

Such a contradicting nation

How can a nation in only three days collect an amount of money which is multiplicative of its population for people with special needs?

How can the people of the same nation without hesitance park their cars on spots that are designated for people with special needs right after they have made a money contribution to help those people?

How can a nation which has only 50 years of independence be in a much better position in terms of economy and unemployment rates than many larger European nations?

How can the same nation have one of the worst public sector customer service?

How can an island with a 700K population where everybody knows each other, most of us are relatives or have a friend of a friend have so much hate for each other?

Why do we carry our personal problems into the streets by honking and giving the hand to other drivers and into work fighting with colleagues?

Why do we think that we know everything, and why do we believe that our opinion is always the right one?

Why do we say that we want to solve the Cyprus problem and yet we turn down every possible solution that comes before us?

Why do we feel the need to wear the most expensive clothes and buy the most expensive cars when our salary is a little bit more than 15000 Euros a year?

Restructuring of the public sector in Cyprus

This is a big, very big problem in Cyprus. Unfortunately the 80/20 rule becomes a 95/5 here. 5 percent of the people in the public sector do 95% of the jobs.  So here are some ideas that could be done to improve how things work:

1. Introduce bi-annual job evaluations so that the work of a public sector employee can be evaluted constantly. If the evaluation of an employee is not satisfactory delay the next pay rise.

2. Terminate the exams for employment in the public sector. Instead, choose candidates based on their experience for the specific position, their academic qualifications and INTERVIEW them! The exams is not the right way to do it because you get to pick the 5-10 highest grades, which are usually people who are studying 24/7 and have no personality, no communication abilities, no leadership abilities.

3. If you still want to have exams, add computer exams in there, you know something like Excel. If you don’t know this is a spreadsheet program provided by Microsoft (sarcasm here).

3. Training, training, training, training, training. At least train them how to be polite and how to smile. Being rude and short does not help anyone when dealing with services.

4. Change the law so a public sector employee can be fired! Especially if they don’t do their job correctly.

5. Terminate all paperwork. In 2009, people use computers! It takes leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssss time. No need to copy, no need to physically transfer from one branch to another, no, no, no. Please!

6. Prepare RFQs for consulting and restructuring of the public sector! It might cost some money, but not as much as we lose on “productivity”.

5 fast ways to improve customer service

With respect to my recent visit to a public sector service in Cyprus the other day, and my disappointment (I am way past the anger phase) with the service, here are 5 easy and non-expensive ways to restructure traditional wait-to-be-served queues so that you can improve customer service.

1. If there are applications that need to be completed put them on shelves with signs, so that customers will complete them BEFORE getting in line.

2. Delegate the work behind the desk. The person who is servicing the customer should not be responsible for making copies, answering phones, making coffees etc.

3. Make sure that short requests and long requests do not have to wait in the same line. Kind of like the supermarkets where you have the 15 or less items.

4. Give numbers to people entering or inform them of how much time they will have to wait.

5. Have a person for information at the door who will make sure that you are at the right place and that you have the necessary documents with you.

Customer “service”

I walked today into the bank. The cashier is talking on the phone but with a face expression nods to me to go there. I give her 3 cheques that need to be deposited. She hasn’t said “Hello” or anything. She is talking with her friend telling her how hard her life is because of TOO much work (reminder here that bank employees in Cyprus get off at 2.30pm). She then reminds her friend that they need to meet downtown this afternoon and she is telling her that she will go a little bit earlier. I also find out about her parents wedding anniversary and the day she bought her car. She finishes with her deposits. I grab them, I say “Thanks” and walk out.

Meanwhile a few miles away an executive is analysing the results of the last customer satisfaction survey. The results are OK, not bad but not very good either. Who cares? What tools will be utilized to increase customer satisfaction? Who knows that the specific cashier was RUDE to me? How do they evaluate customer retention against employee performance? What happens after the initial training of employees? Do they train them again to refresh their memory and skills?

VERY VERY important things! Customer service –> Cyprus at least 10 years behind.

Avoid firing

not guns, but your employees.

In previous posts, I have mentioned that laying off employees should be the last option for companies. I came across two articles on www.bnet.com today that state what you should try first and why laying off employees might cost more than you think. Enjoy

1. How to cut costs to avoid cutting  jobs

2. The hidden costs of layoffs

A.