South Australia introduced significant changes to the way that Planning and Development Applications needed to be assessed. The City of Unley took a positive, energetic approach to these changes and wanted to maximise the benefits of the opportunities presented – Bee Squared helped the team to completely re-think their approach to their internal processes through a structured and data-driven process… Read More »Case Study: Team Transformation
Talent management and succession planning create performance benefits that outweigh the investment of time and effort. However, many leadership teams don’t know how simple and beneficial it can be. The Performance and Potential Matrix can be a good a foundation point. The Performance and Potential Matrix (a.k.a. the nine box grid), is a commonly used HR or managerial concept for… Read More »Talent management & succession planning
After you have agreed your project outcomes (see here), and you have clarity on what you are trying to achieve, let’s implement! The project establishment phase is critical. The time spent on this and the depth of detail can be varied relative to the size, benefit and risk of the project; however, all elements should always be considered. If not considered… Read More »Project establishment – Setting a project up for success
At the end of a project, or on the eve of go-live, have you ever reflected and thought? The team have done a great job and worked so hard to get us here, however: In our experience, the best place to start is to go back to project establishment and identify if the project has a well-defined outcome. This isn’t… Read More »Project outcomes poorly designed – a major reason projects fail
The operational leader of front-line workers is one of the busiest roles in an organisation. Managing your time, and the tasks you will complete and your approach to them is an essential part of your success. Investing in the ‘core’ activities (your operating rhythm): Your operating rhythm. There are key activities that improve your effectiveness as a team manager. There… Read More »Manage YOURSELF FIRST
excerpt from Bee Squared’s Operational Leadership Handbook Recurring catch ups with staff members; prepared with performance feedback & other key topics. Purpose: Meet with individual staff members regularly to: All of the above will contribute significantly to your individual staff members and team producing higher quality work in a more efficient way. Frequency: The frequency of the meetings is your… Read More »One-on-Ones – Purpose, frequency, length, agenda & template
Introduction High performance for your business is about more than just making the right decisions. It’s about having the right KPIs in place to measure success, and rewarding employees for doing their job well. The key to building high-performing teams isn’t merely having good people on board – it’s understanding how KPIs work, what drives them and how to use… Read More »Building great KPIs
Our experience has been that Local Council staff and management care deeply about our communities. Recent history has shown that they have really stepped up in a time of crisis. For example, when Covid-19 hit, many Councils set up incident response teams and worked around the clock to put in interim changes to ensure continuity of service where it mattered,… Read More »Funding the “Future of Work” for Local Councils
The business impacts from the coronavirus lockdowns represent a huge opportunity for organisations who are willing to adapt and view the challenges in a positive, long-term way.
Interesting observation over the last few days as people dust off their Business Continuity Plans as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. Many are finding how much their organisation has changed since last updated and are simply unable to execute the current plan. For some their challenge has been disciplined regular review of BCPs in busy times. For many others… Read More »Keep dust off your Business Continuity Plans
Interesting observation from a number of people who are working remotely for the first time: Because there are less distractions, they are more focussed and are finally getting to some of the “important, non-urgent” items that they really should have done a long time ago. Remote working certainly impacts productivity – but not necessarily in a negative way.
There’s no over-stating it, excellent communication is vital to the performance of teams, and this is even more important when working remotely. Even for the most administrative of roles, daily communication is essential. When staff (including us managers) are accustomed to face-to-face communication, working remotely can cause significant disruption to the ‘normal’ flow of information. There are 2… Read More »Remote Working Series: Excelling at remote communications
You may have noticed a flurry of news articles about wage issues recently, with more than a dozen large Australian companies having problems in the last year alone. There are different ways this is playing out, but the underlying theme is that many employees have been underpaid by their employers and in most cases, it appears to be unintentional. In our experience,… Read More »Why are timesheets making a comeback?
The current Coronavirus pandemic is cause for concern for many businesses. Pandemic response plans are being established and staff are being prepared for changes to the workplace that may (or may not) be implemented. What will happen to your team’s productivity if health agencies implement biosecurity measures and force your staff to stay at home? The availability of remote IT… Read More »Maintaining productivity in uncertain times
Business inefficiencies may seem to creep in over time, but they are actually ‘designed by default’. That is, inefficiencies are created (but are not always apparent) by not designing work systems properly at the right points in time. Inefficiencies wouldn’t creep in if the right design was in place (and being followed – which is a result of having a… Read More »Business inefficiencies
A well-developed Action Plan is primarily a communications tool (and only secondarily a project management tool). It sets expectations. Once improvements are identified, everyone wants to do them all straight away, but this is unrealistic. Given the rigors of daily workload and the fact that robust change takes time, the action plan shows a realistic pathway to delivering improvements –… Read More »An Action Plan is more important than planning tasks
Recently we launched a new approach we are calling Key Management Controls. We’re really excited about how this can help all managers to be free to focus on the big picture – safe in the knowledge that the critically important day-to-day activities are being done. Key Management Controls provides managers with a tool, and an operational discipline, to regularly check… Read More »Key Management Controls
Part 3: Creating the burning platform This is a classic case of implementing one change by focussing on another – create a successful Continuous Improvement culture by focussing on developing Operational Management disciplines. The hard thing is that this needs the commitment, discipline and effort from Senior Managers and Executive. Everyone, especially upper management, will complain that they’re too busy… Read More »CI Programs – the Burning Platform
Part 2: Switch the Story. Setting Continuous Improvement targets is misguided. The concept of CI targets implies that these are different and distinct from real business outcomes, and therefore it pits these 2 areas against each other. People mistakenly believe that if they focus on their CI target, then the business outcomes will suffer, and vice versa. Business outcomes are… Read More »CI Programs – Switch the Story
… if there is no burning platform Part 1: Continuous Improvement programs can come in all shapes and sizes. But there are commonalities between the successful ones that anyone responsible for CI cannot afford to ignore. Too often, the CI Program is seen as someone’s job. But continuous improvement can’t be delivered by one person, or even a group… Read More »Continuous Improvement Programs are doomed to fail…
Most strategic plans make my head hurt. I’m sure I’m not the only one. Common (aka frustrating) gaps include: No balance between the critical dimensions of financial, customer, staff and quality/risk Lots of fluff without substance – i.e. no tangible (objective, normally numeric) targets Not considering BAU as a critical part of the strategy It’s this last one that… Read More »Strategic Planning Gaps
I often hear people say “I don’t have enough time to do . . . [insert something apparently not important]” But what if that thing IS actually important? Well, the organisation, the customers and the staff all ultimately suffer. My view is that this situation is actually a symptom of poor communication (and poor accountability) from the management chain. This… Read More »“Not Enough Time” is a convenient excuse
Spending time on non-value tasks results in reduced productivity. But given this seems self-evident, why are non-value tasks so prevalent in our workplaces? A not-so-recent article preview here indicates that certain knowledge worker roles can realise a 40% improvement by eliminating non-value tasks from their working day. And while the sample size wasn’t large for this particular article, the observations… Read More »The Wicked Productivity Problem
Friday 23 June 2017 – National Wine Centre, Adelaide Adam Villani presented the award for “Innovation in Service” Award. With clients in the aged care sector, it is valuable for us to be a part of recognising and rewarding best practice, new initiatives and valuable individuals. The ACS Awards promote and recognise excellence in a range of… Read More »ACSA Awards for Excellence 2017
Community Aged Care is undergoing significant reform. With an increasingly open and competitive market where the consumer choice is at the centre, providers can no longer assume the safety of a guaranteed steady level of income. Customers having the choice to select their provider and switch if not happy with the service (along with providers no longer restricted to allocated… Read More »Sales is No Longer a Dirty Word, in Community Aged Care