Resolve Consulting Group

Working offsite

Organisations can benefit from employees working remotely or from home, however to ensure such arrangements are effective some safe guards should be put in place first.
They include:

detailed and documented output expectations for all parties, including flexibility in working times, etc
identification of which employees would be best suited to working remotely. For example: self managers or self motivated individuals
ensuring all necessary technology is available and accessible to achieve the expected results
following up any productivity issues immediately
ensuring remote staff attend the office regularly
ensuring there is a clear understanding between all parties as to the IT expenses incurred and who pays.

Tech Tip – Technology Boundaries

Do you check your emails first thing in the morning and last thing at night?

Do you get computer cravings if you are away for longer than half a day without being able to log in to your network?

Do you feel naked if you go out of the house without your mobile phone?

We have as individuals and as a society become increasingly dependent on technology for our day to day life. Not to mention our ever increasing expectations in relation to access to and response times of others. Read the rest of this entry »

Tech Tip – Managing your Email

We recently heard of a Principal with over 15,000 emails in their In-Box!

In these days of Information overload make sure you have a deliberate strategy to keep on top of your emails including:

Use folders and filters to sort and file your emails. Filing by organisation and then by name works well.
Use a good spam and virus filter (Trend Micro Internet Security works well)
Review your In-box once or twice a day to clear the email backlog
Answer the 1min emails immediately to clear them
Try not to join too many ‘old style’ forum mailing list that have a tendency to clog your email In-box
Delete your trash regularly

Tech Tip – Backups

There are all too many ‘horror’ stories of when backups have failed in organisations costing them hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.

In one case there was a business that was the largest supplier in its industry with some 17,000 customers. The nature of their business meant that they were required to hold vast amounts of data of a sensitive nature for their customers.

One day, they needed to restore a file. They couldn’t. The immediate next step was to go to the previous backup. Same result. “OK, let’s try last week”. Still no good.

They soon discovered that for 18 months, they had not had a successful backup. If there had been a flood or fire, they almost certainly would have lost their business. It was a time bomb waiting to go off. Read the rest of this entry »

Survey – Age of Senior Management in Schools

A common issue we are starting to see come to the surface for a number of schools and other not for profit organisations is finding quality senior staff. Anecdotally we have also heard lots of stories about a looming shortage as the “baby boomers” start to retire.

In conjunction with The Bursars Forum, Resolve recently undertook a survey of the 900+ members of The Bursars Forum in respect of the age of personnel holding the following senior positions in schools: Read the rest of this entry »

Staff Recruitment Tips

Over recent years Resolve has assisted a number of schools and other Not For Profit organisations with the appointment of Senior Staff—in particular CEOs, Principals and Business Managers.

There are many key steps in employing those who fill key positions including having clear job parameters and duties determined up front, good quality interviews and of course following up references!

One of the simple tools we use with Boards that we are working with on recruitment issues and ask them to consider especially as they draw closer to making a final decision is the 3 C’s of each prospective candidate. Read the rest of this entry »

Good to Great Part 2

The second attribute of Good to Great companies is they focus on “first who….then what”

Initially this sounds counter-intuitive as you would think you need to decide what you are going to do before you decide who you need to do it.

Collins in his study found that great companies focussed on getting the right people and then decided what they were going to do or change.

To explain this further Collins uses the analogy of a School Bus for that of an organisation. He believes it is critical not just to get the right people on the bus, but to also get them in the right seats on the bus before you decide where the bus is going. Read the rest of this entry »

Good to Great Part 1

In this issue of Resolve News we are starting on a new series drawn from the book Good To Great by Jim Collins.

Good to Great is a study of listed companies in the US who tracked or underperformed the market for 15 years and then underwent a transition and then outperformed the market by at least 3 times for the next 15 years. 11 companies were found to fit the criteria and these were compared to other companies who did not improve or were unable to sustain the improvement to try to work out what had taken these companies from good to great. Read the rest of this entry »

Employment Policies

It’s no longer a one way street! Policies and procedures can form part of the employment contract.

Not for profits and decision maker’s alike need to be aware of a recent decision that has far reaching implications for what was traditionally regarded as forming part of the contract of employment.

Generally considered to be part of an employer’s right to issue lawful and reasonable directions, policy and procedure manuals were not considered to bind the employer. They did, however, impose a moral and ethical obligation on an employee to adhere to and obey them. As they did not form part of the contract per se, employers were able to update or change them at their whim and still bind employees. Read the rest of this entry »

Conflict Resolution

Do you have anyone in your life who drives you nuts? Maybe it is a child, a spouse, a friend a co worker or a parent. Well, if you are like most people you do have one or more people like that in your life!

Picture that person’s face in your mind as we begin this series because I want you to think about how you apply principles of conflict resolution to your relationship. The principles we will look at have worked in dozens of countries around the world. So think about how you can put them to work and see broken relationships become whole.

This article will explore 12 steps to resolving conflict: . Read the rest of this entry »

Working offsite

Tech Tip – Technology Boundaries

Tech Tip – Managing your Email

Tech Tip – Backups

Survey – Age of Senior Management in Schools

Staff Recruitment Tips

Good to Great Part 2

Good to Great Part 1

Employment Policies

Conflict Resolution

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