In my corporate life’s journey, I have come to realise that the values of an organisation determine the fate of the organisation. What the organisation prides itself in as very crucial to their success must be imbibed into each and every employee of the organisation to ensure that this success is achieved.
With the constant engagements I have had with vendors and clients in Ghana, I have come to realise some very little things that are ignored, which can slowly make a business lose its clients and subsequently fail as an organisation .
Response Time: Response time is one very critical aspect of a business, which has not been given much attention in our part of the world, especially when it comes to communication with external parties. In the case of emails, you will find employees overlooking or not responding to important emails for close to two weeks. Some others will decide not to pick calls and it usually beats my mind, knowing that these are official lines purposely given to the employee to perform his or her duties. As a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for every staff in our organisation, we measure the response time of the employee through email, skype, WhatsApp and all other mediums of communication. This has helped us to save about at least 70% of our contracts.
Also, with advancement in technology and social media, organisations that are on the various social media platforms must endeavour to respond to queries in real time. News travel fast, especially bad news; you do not want your followers and connections badmouthing you on social media. That will surely go viral.
Feedback Culture : Giving feedback is another crucial aspect of every growing business. Feedback helps management or the person involved to understand the pending issue and find another option, if there is a problem at hand. Feedback also gives one an upper hand over issues and prevents projects from stalling, especially when the information is needed to complete a task. Measuring feedback of employees helps to make them responsible and take charge of tasks assigned to them.
Reports: I have come to realise the essence of reports to managers. Reports play a major role in decision making at the top level. Employees find it very difficult to send in reports, generally, as it gets exhausting sometimes. Financial reports, progress reports on projects, as well as human resources gives managers an overview of how the organisation is faring from the departmental point of view and helps them to take decisions aimed at making the company better. Motivate the employee to understand the essence of the report and get them to move along with the organisation.
Though not exhaustive, these are some of the basic points that are taken for granted in our quest to focus on the bigger and more pressing issues in the organisation. Inasmuch as the bigger issues are tackled, measures must be put in place to help mitigate some of these bad habits which are likely to escalate into bigger issues if not properly handled.
All the best as you try figuring out what little thing seems to be eating up the growth of your organisation.
By:Mary Sackey
