Management
-
How to Earn Loyalty of Your Associates and Partners
- August 22, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Management
No Comments
I shake my head sometimes when I hear executives complain about the lack of loyalty from their employees, and yet they never hesitate to lay off a bunch of them just to keep their shareholders happy. They treat their employees like replaceable cogs in a machine but are surprised when their employees leave for another
-
How to Maintain the Right Inventory Levels
- August 15, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Management, Measurement, Productivity
A serious problem facing many manufacturers is tying up cash reserves by keeping too much inventory or too many raw materials on hand. Finished products don’t move as quickly as you thought, or you made more than you needed “just in case,” or you bought a lot of raw materials because you got a bigger
-
Should Manufacturers Pay for Education to Shore Up Skilled Labor Shortage?
- August 8, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Innovation, Management, Manufacturing
There’s a skilled labor shortage in this country, but not the kind that you might think. While there are still plenty of people to fill regular manufacturing jobs, there are high-paying, skilled labor jobs that are going unfilled because the companies can’t find enough people with the degrees or training to actually do the work.
-
How Can a Department Like HR Measure Itself?
- July 25, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Management, Measurement
Plenty of people understand how relatively easy it is for a manufacturing operation to perform objective measurements on its output. Each machine is capable of performing X number of actions per hour, and each associate is also capable of producing X number of units in that hour. You can measure units produced, downtime, and even
-
How Do You Measure the Cost Benefits of Safety?
- July 11, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Management, Manufacturing, Measurement
You often hear about the costs of accidents and injuries to a company, and those are usually based on a specific incident or accident. For example, if an associate injures herself on the job and has to seek medical attention for $10,000, then the cost of that accident was $10,000. You also hear about cost
-
Jack Floyd: How I Saw Leadership and Commitment Modeled
- June 6, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Leadership, Management
I recently had a chance to ask some of my old friends and reps to contribute a guest article to my blog. “What do you want us to write about?” they asked. “How about something you’ve learned in our years working together?” I said. In all my years working with David, I learned the importance
-
Nepotism Destroys Company Culture & Productivity
- May 30, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Management, Productivity
If there’s one thing I don’t like about companies is nepotism. If you’re in a family business, nepotism is a productivity killer. And it was certainly the cause of a lot of my headaches when I first started working at Robroy. In those early days, we were running three 8-hour shifts in the factory, and
-
Leadership Sets the Tone for the Whole Company
- May 16, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Management
In March and April, I talked about a couple of the major mistakes leaders can make, such as 1) Not asking for help; and 2) Keeping your weakness a secret. That’s a problem with a lot of leaders. We think we’re supposed to know everything. That if we’re in charge, it must be because we’ve
-
Can You Create a Business Culture?
- May 9, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Leadership, Management
An important part of a business, it’s very identity, is its culture. And it’s possible to develop one, but it’s largely intangible. It’s a collective attitude, not something you can put your finger on. It becomes an intellectual and emotional thing, like enthusiasm. Some companies try to manufacture a culture by recreating many of the
-
Eight Leadership Mistakes: #8 – Avoiding Conflict
- April 25, 2018
- Posted by: Erik Deckers
- Category: Leadership, Management
A recent article, Eight Mistakes Leaders Make That Kill Employee Trust, briefly discussed different management shortcomings and problems that we may unknowingly have or use, which can ruin employees’ respect for us. I wanted to address each of these mistakes and help you learn how to avoid them. Most people hate conflict. That’s understandable. No