I use an HP OfficeJet 6500A Plus.  This does many things well.  Scan is reasonably fast, and gives me plentiful options to come up with good scans, regardless of the document’s quality.  Unfortunately, even after more than a year of use, it still takes several tries with the settings to come up with a good scan of troublesome documents.  But alas, at least I can make it happen!

Printing is reasonably fast, if you can wait on it to come out of a very deep sleep.  In fact, I’m sure that the printer goes right back to a deep slumber within seconds or minutes.  Must be a winter-time hibernation thing.

Today, I tried to cancel a simple copy operation.  After several seconds, I realized I would need to change the default darkness & intensity settings.  I pressed Cancel, and voilà, but device continued its noisy machinations for some time.  “Copy cancelled”.  Then it spit out a blank sheet of paper.  Why spit out a blank sheet?  After another long wait, I decided to fix it the Windows way.  Yep, reboot.

Well, at least a reboot always works.

http://info.profilesinternational.com/profiles-employee-assessment-blog/bid/72102/Rethinking-Your-Hiring-Process-by-Looking-Beyond-the-Resume#Comments

http://info.profilesinternational.com/profiles-employee-assessment-blog/bid/68766/5-Factors-to-Consider-in-Adopting-a-Coaching-Culture

Luck is fine as far as it goes, but at a time when technical skill is critical to so many roles, relying on good luck is foolish and irresponsible. Skills tests enable employers to hire smart and adequately prepare for employee training and coaching.

Managers apply these tests just as they do other Profiles assessments. They are effective in selecting employees, increasing productivity, enhancing employee engagement levels, and reducing turnover. Astute leaders also use them to give new employees a jumpstart on their jobs, to reduce training costs and to assess the skill level of a team.

Many of the tests are available at several levels, including Standard, Basic, Advanced, Essentials, and Time Solver. The Standard is the recommended test for most positions that use the applications organizations test for. It covers the 30 to 35 most often used and most critical tasks that a worker needs to be rated proficient, and provides questions at the beginner, intermediate and advanced levels.

Here are some of the skills areas employers can get information about when assessing job candidates:
• Excel
• PowerPoint
• Language proficiency
• Clerical
• Call Center
• Accounting and finance
• Medical and nursing
• Legal
• Industrial
• Computer literacy
• Retail sales
• Food service
• Information technology

Hiring managers who believe they can rely on a listing of resume accomplishments need to consider this: HR experts believe about half of all people lie or exaggerate their skills on their resumes.

If you don’t have a lot of time or money to expend on training employees on software programs, doesn’t it make sense to know what they know in advance? If you are an employer who wants to spend training dollars in a targeted area, doesn’t it make sense to know which employees actually need skills training?

Hawthorne Services now offers Profiles International Skills Tests!  Contact Karen Kehr at 574-596-3058 or Chuck Bower at 574-361-6166 for more information.

http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250.

Your Loving Spouse

The notion of one spouse evaluating the other in this manner is laughable. Yet is this so different from the presumptions made in the annual performance review process? Organizations want to improve employee productivity in order to grow overall business performance and corporate value. But the tool most often used to evaluate and improve performance—the performance review—is based on several flawed premises.

One big strike against performance reviews is that they are a backward look to see where the employee has been—and perhaps failed. Since performance reviews occur once a year, if at all, they require us to look back over a long period of time. They make the manager look out of sync (“I’m not satisfied with your performance on that project six months ago…”), and even if the criticism is viewed positively, it’s too late to change it.

Another problem with traditional reviews is that they are based on the assumption that the person evaluating someone has a full and accurate grasp of the other’s performance, hence the ability to accurately evaluate.

Perhaps the most awkward part of performance reviews is the fact that they violate a basic unspoken tenet of interpersonal dynamics. What other setting would adults be expected to formally state a judgment of another adult’s behavior and performance besides a court of law? We do not, in normal social settings, behave as judge, jury and impactor of someone’s ability to make a living. This alienating power dynamic does not make for better performance or move a company closer to achieving its goals in most instances.

There is a better way, and it does not involve waiting for a formal performance review date to arrive. Communicate with your employees early and often. Early, to catch potential problems before they happen. Often, because the continuous interest shown and feedback given to employees through communicating and coaching guarantees better performance.

This Spam Filter is great!

So, if the spam filter caught the daily digest of messages in my spam filter, how do I know I have spam?

ASAP Utilities is owned and developed by Bastien Mensink, a resident of the Netherlands.  The product has been around a few years, and works with almost all versions of Excel, from 2000 thru the 2010 32-bit version.  There is a free, non-commercial version which will require an update twice a year.  However, for $49, you can purchase a license, get priority support via email, and enjoy all upgrades to the current 4.x version.  Volume discounts are offered, too.  The application has received several international awards and mentions, and the user guide is one of the best written by an individual developer.  ASAP Utilities, once installed, adds another drop down menu selection to Excel.  From here, as well as certain shortcut keys, you can use its features.  Here are some of my favorites:

• Favorite “Select” utility: a feature to select all non-contiguous cells based on content, formatting, or more.  We’re talking the ability to select based on comparisons like “equals to”, “not equals to”, is between, contains, etc.  We’re also talking about selection based on font attributes too!
• Favorite “Sheet” utility: a feature to create a quick index sheet of all other sheets in your workbook.  Clickable to jump immediately to any of the other sheets!
• Favorite “Range” utility: I like 2 different features.  One is the ability to find and replace across multiple sheets at one time.  The other is an advanced sorting feature, that has up to 5 sort columns (not 3), as well as sorting on font attributes, cell attributes, text length, email domain name in a list of email addresses, etc.
• Favorite “Columns & Rows” utility: a feature to color each N’th row or column in selection, otherwise known as color banding.  Even better, it does not have to be fixed cells, you can define a conditional formatting formula that takes inserted rows and columns into account.
• Favorite “Web” utility: a feature to cleanly import a table from a web page into Excel, “cleaning” out selected content from the data, such as hyperlinks, images, buttons, etc.  Also allows you to remove trailing and leading spaces from text, apply standard fonts and sizes automatically, and other useful features.
• Favorite “Export” utility: a feature to export a selection of cells as a clean HTML table for web developers.  Really slick.  This is a nice feature when you have to build web content from Excel data!

 To get more information, read testimonials, and purchase ASAP Utilities, see the web site: http://www.asap-utilities.com.

However, that’s not the issue.  The issue is, does your vendor make it nearly impossible for you to get help?  I won’t identify the software company or their solution, other than to state that they are providing an important add-on to a popular ERP system.

During a recent upgrade at a client site, it became necessary to call tech support for assistance.  An upgrade step was not executing automatically, and we were going to need to know how to invoke it manually.  Even though it was around 3 pm on a weekday afternoon (in the vendor’s time zone), it was impossible to get anyone to answer the tech support number (much less the receptionist at the main phone number). 

It took a phone call to the sales staff at the software vendor to get through to technical support. 

When a key software vendor expects to conduct support primarily via e-mail with their customers… you know it will not be easy.

Bottom line, make sure you know your vendor’s support policies and practices BEFORE you sign on the bottom line.

Technology planning is a key strategic initiative of your business. How many times have you heard about companies that have reached the limits of their technology’s capacity and chosen a path they regretted later, or worse, spent large sums of money to fix it?  

Technology planning is a process, not a result. The result is the optimized use of your technology investment that supports the business and is aligned with the goals and objectives of your business plan. Let’s look at the steps of developing a strategic technology plan of three years duration, which is a typical plan length. From that foundation, you can develop semi-annual or annual tactical plans and projects.

The Planning Team

To start the process, create a planning team of 3-5 members. This should include your IT leader, the CFO or controller, and a key operations leader. The CEO should act as sponsor, and enlist the support of the other key stakeholders in the development of the plan. An outside consultant or key leader in the organization should manage the team, but this will not necessarily be the IT leader. Why not the IT leader? Technology is there to support the organization and drive value and benefits. The business goals and objectives should drive the tech plan, and the IT leader may not be the best person to hold this direction. Another criteria for management of this team is that the team’s manager should have experience in developing strategic technology plans and managing the development to a firm schedule. A planning process that drags on forever is ripe for disaster.

Inventory Your Assets

Next, know where you stand and what you have in technology assets. If you don’t already have an inventory of your IT assets, then it’s time to create one, or bring it up to date. Frequently, important components get added in bits and pieces to support specific customer needs, regulations, or the desires of a key employee. If a technology plan had been developed in the past, review it. How much of it actually became reality? Was it refined as business needs changed, or was it left to collect dust? 

Gain Buy-In

To create an effective and realistic plan also involves input from key stakeholders and the executive team. In all aspects of development of a technology plan, alignment to the business plan must occur. Otherwise, you are writing a worthless document limited in objectives and outcomes, and without buy-in. Interview the key stakeholders for their anticipated needs in view of the business plan. They should not expect the technology plan to be loaded with unrealistic demands that are unachievable. They should be encouraged to ask, “Could we consider…” As this information is collected, verify the vision and anticipated needs with the executive team, and clarify the technology goals and objectives necessary to support and enable the business plan.  Calculate what returns can be achieved from business wants and needs. The outcomes must be measurable and provide a return on investment. Work with the key stakeholders to develop measurable returns. 

A common failure during strategic technology plan development is to omit a key stakeholder. This might happen, for example, because it is assumed that “Joe”, the head of sales, can’t talk about technology and/or doesn’t care. Joe doesn’t need to be a techie to help develop the technology plan. His input is necessary to describe how he would like to communicate and improve relationships with his customers, and what gaps might exist that prevent him from exploiting new markets or increasing customer retention. 

 
No Sacred Cows

Another failure during strategic technology plan development is to assume that the future must revolve around a key technology or process. “We’ve always done it that way” is the death knell to continuous improvement. Likewise, to assume that future technology must be dependent on, or have as a pre-requisite, a server, system or application that has existed for many years is also a mistake. It is always necessary to determine if current technology fits the plan objectives, not the other way around. This is not to suggest that you replace everything. Tried and tested systems are the backbone of success, but only if they continue to meet your needs.
Write the Plan

Write the key goals and objectives to be supported by the plan. Develop realistically achievable components that support the goals and objectives. A good strategic plan isn’t comprised of a single three year project. The plan should briefly describe the development process and stakeholders involved. It should relate the outcomes of each component that supports an objective. Also, identify potential risks to the plan’s objectives. Complete a draft and review it with key stakeholders and the executive team.  
Plan Architecture

Next, develop the architecture plan to support the business. What applications, systems and infrastructure are necessary to support the demands of the business? It is not necessary, nor desirable, to take this architecture plan to an extreme level of detail. Technology changes too rapidly, and the tactical plan will define what is necessary to meet the objectives. 
To Outsource or Not, That Is the Question

What components of technology should be outsourced versus provided internally? This applies to maintaining your network, servers, and infrastructure as well as the software applications required. Companies of all sizes outsource some part of their technology needs since they don’t have the resources to run their business AND become technology experts. Selecting outsourced resources is a topic that will be covered in more detail in a later newsletter.

Timelines and Priorities

Prioritize and negotiate all aspects of the plan with the executive team. Undoubtedly, all of the objectives of the plan cannot be implemented in a matter of weeks or months. Investment of limited resources demands that those projects of a strategic nature or with the best returns should be considered first. Then develop your timelines to measure progress to the plan, and establish accountability with both your technology team as well as the business team(s) associated with the plan components. Once your plan has won approval, the process of implementation begins.

Don’t let the plan collect dust. This is a working document that is refined on a periodic basis, either semi-annually or annually. Your investment in technology deserves it, and your company goals demand it!

To learn more about how to create and execute a strategic technology plan, call Hawthorne Technology Services today.