Business Efficiency - Chapter 5

Hi Team,

How time flies when you are having fun!  What an action packed week, hence my delay in posting to the blog.  Yesterday I attended the Northern Records Management Group for Local Government meeting.  What a great opportunity to network with RM professionals and share information!

Chapter 5

Fig 1 How can you achieve this?

If only we had a magic wand to make our workplaces happy places 100% of the time.  Unfortunately from time to time we may have faced difficult situations at work.  The thing that we need to consider is how we are contributing to the difficult issue, is it in a destructive or positive way?  Ideally you should be contributing in a positive way whether that be helping and assisting others to find information that they are looking for, having a listening ear when required or being productive and "doing" the work set up for us.  At the end of the day we need to monitor our personal contribution to the team and identify the impact that we have.  

Have you considered the amount of work that you do in a day and what result there is at the end?  Sometimes it can be difficult to identify what are our achievements.  You know that you have done something today/this week/month etc because the time has "flown".  Sound familiar?  You might want to consider using a "log sheet" for you to use so that you are able to identify your achievements throughout the day.  My suggestion is that if you would like to use it as a tool, collate them and use them as a reference, especially when it comes to your Performance Development Review/Appraisal.

What happens is that when our PDR comes around we tend to be scratching our heads as to what have our achievements been.  If these achievements have been big, like completing Cert III in Recordkeeping, usually these aren't easily forgotten.  Sometimes it are the little successes that we forget to celebrate!  Consider what you have achieved this week and give yourself  a pat on the back!  It could be something as simple as meeting a customer request in a timely manner, finding a "home" for the paperwork on your desk.  Be sure to make a list of your achievements for the year so far, it will assist you when it is time for your PDR.  If anyone else has some ideas on how they record their successes please feel free to share with the team, I am interested to hear what I am missing out on!

Fig 2 You are in charge of your own personal development!

Remember that you can be proactive in your development.  Don't wait for others to drive your development.  What I mean by this is that you can set your own goals for achievement, whether that be at home or at work.  We should all strive to achieve our best and that includes striving to achieve our goals.  What are your goals for 2013?  Some examples could be learning to cook Thai food, moving house to completing Cert III.  What do you want to achieve and how do you plan to achieve it?

As mentioned earlier difficult situations can arise & how you deal with it will either be a positive outcome or one which should be forgotten!  Check out your intranet as there maybe other valuable resources available to help you.  At the end of the day the choice is yours, you can either "fight" or "flight", if required seek assistance from a supervisor or team leader to help you through the difficult issue . . .which leads me to difficult customers!

Yes we have all been faced with the "customer from hell", however we need to determine that the difficult customer and a customer complaint are two different things.  A complaint can be resolved (generally), while a difficult customer is a behavioural/attitude of the customer.  This requires more effort when dealing with this type of customer.  Be sure to check out pages 81 - 82 on difficult customers and remember that it is OK to ask for help when dealing with these types of customers.  

Assignments

Thank you to students who submitted their assignments to me!  I look forward to reading them and providing feedback.

Enjoy the long weekend & don't forget to look out for course material being delivered to your email inbox next week!

Ciao,
Melisa