3 Easy Ways to Control Your Expenses

We have all heard of the phrase “one day millionaire” right? Are you that type of person? I was. And I’m sure a lot of people out there are too. It’s just so easy, when money is right there, to spend it all. But what’s hard is to earn it back. So here are 3 easy to follow tips on how you can control your expenses.

3 Easy Ways to Control Your Expenses (Image Reference)

Face It

Get a pen and a piece of paper. Sit down. Maybe even have a cup of coffee beside you. Once you’re settled, think of all your expenses and write them all down. The needs, the wants, the luxuries, all of them. Write them down and take a long hard look at each item. Accept the fact these are the things you have to allot your money for. The list may be long and scary but knowing what you’re up against will be very helpful in controlling your expenses.

Prioritize

After you’ve listed them down, it’s time to prioritize. Think of the most important thing that you need to pay and write down “1” beside it. Do this until you’ve numbered everything according to importance. Don’t negotiate with yourself. A need is a need, a want is a want. There’s no way around it. You have to accept that.

Stick To It

Now that you have your expenses listed and your priorities straight, you have to take action. This is the hardest part, I agree. But, as you may already know, this is what you need to succeed in controlling your expenses. Stick to the plan. Pay number 1 before going to number 2. Pay number  5 before going to number 6. If you don’t have enough to pay the things that are on the bottom of your list, that’s fine. Save it for the next pay day. What is important is that the ones on the top of your list are settled. Remember, they are at the top for a reason.

So now you have 3 very easy and efficient ways to help you control your expenses. As you practice these, remember that the important thing is to be strong and follow through with your plan. It would also help if you had your list with you all the time. This way, whenever you’re in doubt or if you get tempted to spend, you can just look at your list and remember your priorities.

Overcome the Talent Shortage with Strategic Workforce Planning

A Company can be successful only if it has a workforce that is well capable of implementing all of its strategies. That means a company’s long term goal accomplishment mostly depends on the ability of its HR department to recruit, motivate, utilize and retain the right kind of people in the right roles in the organization. But, a number of forces such as economic rescissions, globalization, a shift in the available number of talented workers by generation and technological advancement have created growing Talent Storage that is posing a real threat to sustainable organizational success.

To overcome Talent Shortage and accomplish organizational objectives, business leaders and HR managers need to engage in Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP) that directly relates organization’s Talent Management Strategy (TMS) to its corporate strategies.

Overcome Talent Shortage with SWP (Image Reference)

Talent-focused Strategic Workforce Planning

As part of organizational talent management strategy, HR managers need to follow a talent-focused step by step strategic planning process as described below:

Step 1 – Create Strategic Alignment

At the very outset, executive leadership and HR managers need to sit together to create long-term organizational talent management strategy that directly supports organizational objectives, expectations and broader strategic plans. This may include a number of strategic decisions such as re-organization, launching new business venture, international expansion, planned market reductions and exits etc based on expected changes in competitive environments and technologies. Thus, the very first step in a talent-focused strategic workforce planning is to set the long term intent of the business such as developing mission and vision statements. This must be conducted in a partnership between business leaders and HR managers.

Step 2 – Evaluate the Current Workforce

The second step is to evaluate the ability of the organization’s current workforce to achieve organizational strategies that are created in the first step by collecting demographics and various employment characteristics of current workforce.

Step 3 – Forecast Future Workforce Needs

Then, HR managers need to forecast future workforce needs based on expected organizational growth. They need to look for reduction of counter-productive practices or redundancies to increase operational efficiencies in the organizational talent management process. The goal of this step is to find out critical success factors, risks and unknowns relative to the organization’s future workforce.

Step 4 – Analyze Gaps

Next, HR managers need to identify gaps between the capabilities of current workforce and the capabilities that would be required by the future workforce.

Step 5 – Develop an Action Plan

This step is the core of the Strategic Workforce Planning. HR managers need develop an action plan by identifying specific techniques, practices and initiatives that will ensure availability of required talents in future thereby eliminate the gaps identified in step 4. Main aspects of the action plan should be logically broken down into a progressive series of convenient phases.

Step 6 – Execute, Monitor, and Adapt

Planning without proper execution, monitoring and adaptation to changing needs adds no value to the organization. Thus, HR managers must give utmost importance in this final step to successfully manage talent shortage.

5 Ways Unhappy Employees Destroy Your Strategy Execution

Ensuring job satisfaction is the key to get highest possible performance from employees. On the other hand, employee job dissatisfaction can cause a considerable damage to an organization. As every single employee in your organization has some role to play in strategy execution, even a small number of unhappy employees can destroy your organization’s strategy execution. So, one of the most important jobs of HR managers is to convert unhappy workers into happy and performing workers.
Let’s have a look on 5 ways unhappy employees destroy your strategy execution:

Unhappy Employees (Image reference)

Low Productivity

When employees are unhappy, they become indifferent regarding their productivity. So, they lose their motivation toward achieving organizational goals by playing their respective roles in strategy execution. They don’t do anything as per changing demands of situation; rather they do only what they are asked to do by their immediate bosses.

Affect Co-Workers

Unhappy employees harm productivity of other employees in the organization by discussing their unhappiness and discouraging others not to do their best. Unhappy employees seldom remain isolated and even together they might plan to produce a mutiny against management.  Altogether they create a chaos in the organization and waste your valuable time.

Clash and Complain

Unhappy employees are more prone to clash with their co-workers and bosses on different issues. They complain about tiny little things and pollute the working environment in the organization. Their bad behaviors may lead to get a lots of complains from other workers too. All these things will shift your attention from strategy execution to tiny little things.

Destroy company’s Image

If the unhappy employees of a company have anything (e.g. customer service) to do with customers, there is a big chance that company’s image will be at stake. Their unfriendly behavior with customer may result in many loyal customer lose.

Spoil Company Culture and Work Environment

What is right in a company may not be right in another as every company has its own culture. But, unhappy employees of a company tend to ignore company culture and spoil the working environment.  Say for example, a company has a culture of timely execution of scheduled plans, but unhappy workers may be slow in executing their duties.

HR managers must take necessary steps to deal efficiently with these unhappy employees in the organization. First of all, they need to identify unhappy workers and then stop them destroy strategy execution. HR managers should try to find some way to convert these unhappy employees into happy workers. If it gets complicated, necessary steps (warn or fire) should be taken by HR managers to lessen the impact of these unhappy employees on strategy execution.

A Systematic Approach to Maximize Strategy Execution

A blockbuster product, breakthrough technology, or brilliant strategy can put an organization on the competitive map, but without solid execution everything can go in vain. Hence strategy execution, the end result of a large number of decisions made by employees of every level of an organization based on their self-interest and the information they have, is the most important indicator of an organization’s success. Getting every aspect of an organization moving in the right direction to support organizational strategies is regarded as both an art and a science.

Strategy Execution (Image Reference)

There is no alternative to follow a systematic approach to maximize strategy execution. An organization need to pursue the following approach to maximize its strategy execution:

Step 1- Engage Employees of All Levels in Strategy Formulation

Major part of strategy execution is done by lower and mid level employees of an organization. Therefore, engaging these lower and mid level employees in strategy formulation can motivate them toward successful strategy execution.  It can effectively communicate the organizational goals and objectives to them too. Thus, organizations should include representatives from all employee levels in strategy formulation.

Step 2- Clarify Decision Rights

Higher level managers must clarify decision rights of each and every level of employees. Everyone in the organization should have a good idea of the actions and decisions for which he/she is responsible. This would result in timely and hassle-free strategy execution.

Step- 3 Design Smooth Information Flow

Effective communication is the key in maximizing strategy execution. Research shows that maximum execution of strategies of an organization vastly depends on smooth information flow. Field and line managers need to have necessary information to understand bottom-line consequence of their everyday choices. Therefore, there should have a smooth information flow from the top management to line managers.

Step 4- Develop a Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP)

Identifying, recruiting, motivating and retaining right kind of employees in the right roles is as important as maintaining a smooth information flow across the organization. As strategies are executed by employees from all levels, HR department should ensure that it makes a comprehensive SWP. There should have a proper reward and incentive plan to motivate employees towards maximum strategy execution.

Step 5- Restructure If Necessary

Restructuring is necessary only when the strategy execution of an organization is at its lowest point. That means the organization doesn’t have clarity of decision rights, smooth information flows, and a proper strategic workforce planning. So, it should initiate a transformation program to restructure the whole organization and move every aspect of it to support strategy execution.