Stomp Out Quotleechesquot In Your Company

Writen by Michael Mercer

Recently, I felt appalled to see a political candidate running on the motto of "Demand More!" That motto oozes extreme nerve, and implies some people think it is o.k., as the saying goes, to "rob Peter to pay Paul."

Well, this "Demand More!" philosophy led me to thinking about "leeches." I define "leeches" as people who devote their time and energy trying to get something for nothing – including you and your company.

YOU LET "LEECHES" INTO YOUR COMPANY

Most companies have hired "leeches." These are employees who look forward to using every vacation day more than they look forward to putting in a day's work for a day's pay.

"Leeches" call-in "sick" after they use all their vacation days – to use their "sick-days" as vacation days. They also use all "personal days" you offer, even if they do not really need a "personal day."

"Leeches" do just enough work to avoid getting fired – and not one bit extra.

"Leeches" steal property from your company and your customers. They aim to keep anything that is not nailed down.

When you put a "leech" on your payroll, your employees know you hired a lazy bum. It conveys you do not value their productivity because, if you did, you would not make a "leech" their co-worker.

HOW TO AVOID HAVING "LEECHES" IN YOUR WORKFORCE

You can eliminate these parasites in two ways:

1. Get rid of "leeches" you have

2. Stop hiring "leeches"

DE-EMPLOY "LEECHES" WHO WORK FOR YOU

Get rid of "leeches" in your company. A great way to terminate them is to insist every employee writes goals that

a. are measurable

b. have deadlines

Then, evaluate each employee on whether the person achieved his or her goals.

Important: Do not evaluate annually. That gives "leeches" too much time to rip you off. Instead, evaluate your employees quarterly. Productive employees like to shine often. But, "leeches" will shriek because they are vampires you are forcing into the light. After all, they are vampires who suck profits and productivity out of your company – if you let them stay.

Since "leeches" often fail to achieve measurable goals with deadlines, you can de-employ them. Actually, you are doing them a favor: They do not really want to show up at work, anyway.

4 WAYS TO AVOID HIRING "LEECHES"

As author of the book "Hire the Best -- & Avoid the Rest™," I will give you four ways to avoid hiring "leeches" and lazy bums.

1 Way to Avoid Hiring "Leeches" = Make Applicants Fill-Out a "Character Test"

Many of our clients use the "P.A.S.S.-III® Character Test" to help avoid hiring "bad apples." It takes only 10-15 minutes for an applicant to fill-out, and you only need 1-2 minutes to score it. The applicant's scores tell you how "risky" the applicant is on three key attitudes:

a. work ethic

b. trustworthiness, e.g., possible stealing

c. drug/drinking attitudes

You, of course, would prefer to hire applicants who score "low risk." Applicants who score "moderate risk" are not as desirable, but the "P.A.S.S.-III® Character Test" gives you specific questions to judge how "risky" the "moderate risk" applicant is. (Note: If an applicant scores "high risk," then you quickly show them out the door!)

3 More Ways To Avoid Hiring "Leeches" = Clues in Job Interviews

Glorious news: "Leeches" give you clues in the job interview to help you weed them out of the running.

First interview clue: During the interview, a "leech" applicant asks about days employees do not need to work: Vacation days, sick-days, personal-days, and holidays. An applicant who really desires to work focuses on the possible job – not on days off-work.

Second interview clue: Applicants who turn into productive employees can tell you many quantified results they achieved in previous jobs. In contrast, "leeches" mainly spout vague blathering about "doing work." Do not let them fool you: People who cannot tell you specific results they achieved are not worth hiring.

Third interview clue: Applicant exudes laziness. Most managers find "problem employees" are 1 – 3 of the following:

■ Lazy,

■ hazy

■ crazy

Remember the saying, "If it walks like a duck and sounds like a duck, then it probably is a duck." Well, if an applicant walks and sounds lazy, then the applicant probably is lazy. Do not bet your career "hoping" a person will work better then s/he acts and sounds.

YOUR ACTION PLAN to STOMP OUT "LEECHES"

You now can use this two-prong method to keep "leeches" out of your company:

1. De-employ "leech" employees by proving they are unproductive

2. Avoid hiring "leeches" by using

a. P.A.S.S.-III® Character Test

b. 3 interview clues

Your result: Everyone in your company will consider you an outstanding manager.

Copyright 2005 Dr. Michael Mercer

Michael Mercer, Ph.D., is a pre-employment test expert, public speaker, and founder of The Mercer Group, Inc. in Barrington, Illinois. Dr. Mercer developed the widely used Abilities & Behavior Forecaster™ Tests. You can view information on these tests at http://www.mercersystems.com

He wrote 5 books, including (1) Hire the Best -- & Avoid the Rest™, (2) Turning Your HR Department into a Profit Center™, and (3) Absolutely Fabulous Organizational Change™. You can subscribe to his free e-Newsletter at http://www.DrMercer.com or contact him at (847) 382-0690

7 Things That Can Help Your Hospital Run Better

Writen by Tony Jacowski

The outbreak of epidemics coupled with the exodus of medical professionals skills make running a hospital a nightmare. The lack of funds to purchase essential equipment only adds to an already bad scenario. Add to this administrations with outdated notions about hospital management and you have an impending disaster.

In a quest to better run their hospitals, many hospital administrators have deployed six sigma process improvements and have started to show such good results that they have converted skeptics to believers. Running hospitals better requires a lot more effort than running a regular business. Here are 7 things that help you to run your hospital better:

1. Critical Illness Care: Facilitate treatment for critical illnesses like cardiac diseases, cancers, brain surgeries etc as these specialized treatments are not possible just anywhere. A good infrastructure, a team of specialized doctors and adequate support staff should be dedicated to these services. The general increase in the successful treatment of these cases should help promote your hospital.

2. Develop A Network Of Physicians: A professional partnership with a network of independent physicians gets you more referrals. Physicians refer their patients to known hospitals when necessary.

3. Good Inventory Of Essentials: Keep every emergency and non emergency essential like oxygen, blood of all groups, medicines and syringes available at all times. Not having to run around looking for essentials not only saves crucial time but also impresses patients and their relatives. 4. 24/7 Service Popularizes Your Hospital: You never know when you need emergency medical attention. A hospital, open 24 hrs and 7 days with all facilities available can save lives as well as gain goodwill. In-house surgeons and on-call surgeons should be able to jump into action in no time.

5. Reduce Process Times: Long process times like accident and ICU admission can prove fatal to patients. Reduction of the amount of paperwork necessary saves critical time. Dedicated, uncluttered pathways leading to operating rooms also saves a lot of time. Trained staff and personnel can handle things better than they always used to do. Computerized documents like case histories should be able to be accessed over a computer network. This saves time, costs and reduces staff fatigue, which can reduce burnout.

6. Separate Administration And Stores From Other Areas: It is crucial that the administration, stores and the front office are far removed from the critical areas where absolute silence is essential for recuperation of patients. A clean and serene environment will have a curative effect on the patients. Provide a separate entry, bypassing the main building, to this area for the use of patients and their loved ones.

7. Simplify Billing And Documentation: It removes the necessity to have additional staff to maintain a mountain of paperwork. Keep only those records required by regulations. Paperwork reduction also reduces the probability of mistakes occurring in billing and other patient documents.

North Carolina Baptist used Six Sigma process improvements to revolutionize cardiac care. By getting heart attack patients from the emergency room to the cardiac catheterization lab faster, they slashed 41 minutes off the hospital's mean time, and as a result saved lives.

The foundation for all these activities must be a rational thinking and questioning of every process and system as to their necessity, in addition to providing the best treatment to patients. As a hospital, if you aren't running lean and mean, everything else will fail miserably.

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solutions – Six Sigma Online ( http://www.sixsigmaonline.org ) offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.

The Maturity Level Of An Infrastructure

Writen by Hans Bool

Although not at the center of action, Infrastructure can make a difference. For instance when it is not there when you need it. The importance of infrastructure accompanies the growth of any (especially online) business. The more action, the more you need infrastructural support.

A step in the design of this fundament for your business involves the capacity plan in which the capacity is calculated and the growth of traffic. The capacity of a building or even a physical bridge could easily be calculated but the capacity if a ever growing internet infrastructure depends on factors you cannot always predict. The size of future traffic.

Than, this traffic enters your business, through a first possible "single point of failure" (SPOF).

A single point of failure is the weakest link of your chain of activities. A bridge metaphorically shows this weakest point. For you business, this bridge could be a telephone switch or an internet connection. Rather than a physical bridge which is fixed, telecommunication equipment are modular and scaleable. In case one module fails there is always a backup. This duality is required if your business depends on reliability and confidence. For instance, if you are to fulfill a banking transaction you do not want a failure in the connection during this transaction. Making this happen however requires large investments.

Some single points of failure are difficult to get rid of. The connection to a database for example is such a weak point. In the end, there is only one database where all transactions end.

Infrastructure is a world that is invisible for most of us, but to give you a reliable service, much of a companies budget is swallowed by infrastructural investments. Making sure you will not notice a difference. What ever happens.

The level of an infrastructure is measure by a "maturity." A maturity levels indicates in which way security (amongst other things) is handled. Just letting you know to be safe, for example showing the "https" acronym at your browser indicating that you are more secure and you may hand over your personal details.

Infrastructure remains invisible until an incident occurs. For example the one described in the article "The Man, The System And The Incident: A Human Tragedy." Those incidents reveal the maturity level of the infrastructure.

© 2006 Hans Bool

Hans Bool is the founder of Astor White a traditional management consulting company that offers online management advice. Astor Online solves issues in hours what normally would take days. You can apply for a free demo account

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