Thursday 18 October 2007

What Would You Do With a Half Hour?

Re-energizing the accounting staff is a major part of re-energizing your system. Here's a question to ask them: "What would you do if your work took a half hour less each day?" After you weed through the joke answers, you'll find people who have great ideas about addressing those important but not necessarily urgent tasks that are dropping off the list because of a lack of time.

Now, take those good intentions and strategize with the staff member about how THEY are going to recover that time. Look for ways that you can leverage your existing technology to achieve them. Make sure the strategy is documented on the employee's goals for their next review.

Result: they will feel empowered, listened to and more energetic. Oh, and you just might end up with a better accounting system!

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

You know, this is an essential question in accounting and business, people and time-management in general. It also is under-addressed in the HR sector which should get out of mommydom quickly and get involved in time-management issues, not only via performance reviews. Analytical accounting also tends to make people take into account what really matters.

As the case is today, HR already is getting more involved in money matters and time-management and not just writing empty policy. Hopefully collaboration is a growing trend.