filledandchilled

Important Factors in Choosing the Right Computerized Maintenance Management Software

 

Computerized maintenance management software packages typically maintain a database of information which is intended to help employees work more efficiently. It also helps an organization’s management make decisions leading to a more effective resource allocation. In fact, it is considered an integral part of an efficient maintenance department. Web-based computerized maintenance management software is not only effective in reducing an organization’s maintenance expenses, but also minimizing downtime and emergency repairs which lead to an increased overall profitability.

If you are interested in getting computerized maintenance management software for your company, there are several elements you need to look into before picking the one which is right for you.

1. Firstly, you need to figure out how long it will take to master the software. Remember that you need software you can understand. The less time it takes to learn, the better. On the other hand, if it is taking too long to work your way around the software, you may end up never using it at all.

2. Usability is an important factor to consider. Maintenance software should ideally be easy to use. This is the only way you will actually use it more often and more effectively. After all, what is the point in getting a product that is too complex to be used regularly?

3. Features of the maintenance management software are other vital factors of choosing a software application. A web based software bar coding for customizable reporting and inventory may be essential for complex operations. And then again, there are some that will provide a base program to begin with, and then you can keep adding modules which can be used as and when necessary.

4. The maintenance software you choose should be able to effectively streamline your scheduling, and keep a track of all the repair history. Ideally you should opt for software applications that allow you to keep an eye on every maintenance requirement, depending on the different factors. This way, you can figure out when it is time to schedule routine maintenance. Tool tracking will also give you an idea of the specific tools that each employee has. This goes a long way in eliminating confusion.

There are several other factors that are equally important when it comes to picking the right maintenance software. For instance, you need to consider the product’s cost, availability of support, and stability of the vendor. If this all seems a little overwhelming, you would do well to get professional assistance.

Welcome to the interactive tour of eMaints on-demand Facility Maintenance Management Solution. See first hand why so many companies depend on eMaint X3 for their maintenance success. www.emaint.com

Optimize Your Operational Capability with CMMS Maintenance Management Software

 

Facility Management is one of the most important aspects of any business. Managing a large facility can be a daunting task. Facility Managers need to strike a balance between cost and profit. CMMS Maintenance Management software is the ideal tool to automate your tracking system for optimizing operational capability and good maintenance.

CMMS Maintenance Management system helps to monitor and maintain the present and the budgeted cost for an organization’s machinery, human resources, stock and properties. CMMS also ensures quality control and liability reporting are in place during production to prevent unnecessary losses or customer dissatisfaction. Some of the functions performed by CMMS are scheduling tasks, reserving and distribution of materials, recording expenditures and tracking any unusual incidents in the production process. CMMS Maintenance Management is an important part of any plant or facility functionality. Some of the most important CMMS Maintenance Management software packages used are discussed below:

Inventory Control: This is a type of CMMS Maintenance Management software used to manage spare parts, tools, allocating materials and managing other materials. Inventory Control also deals with proper storage of all materials, purchase order management, tracking all shipping goods and measuring actual inventory stock.
Safety Monitoring: This particular CMMS Maintenance Management software helps to track and monitor all the important documentations along with regulations regarding safety. Safety Monitoring CMMS Maintenance Management software also helps in ensuring proper safety of the equipment and personnel
Asset Management: This particular CMMS Maintenance Management software helps to record updated data about all the actual properties including equipment. It helps to keep the warranties up to date, update the renewal dates of the service contracts, monitor the depreciation of spare parts and its purchase date. It also helps to assess the overall expected lifetime of all equipment so as to measure the real worth of business at a given point of time.
Preventative Maintenance: Periodic inspections of all equipment and facilities are necessary to reduce maintenance costs. This particular software uses checklists for monitoring the maintenance progress and updates the concerned department responsible.

CMMS Maintenance Management system is an important tool for liability protection. CMMS ensures that a plant or a facility is being audited to check the safety procedures. A CMMS package should be purchased with much care after seeing its scalability and scope for future development and expansion. www.facilligence.com is a leader in CMMS Maintenance Management solutions and Business Project Management Software which can be a reliable partner for your inventory management.

Enterprise Asset Management Has Solutions For Government And Business

Leading government agencies, businesses and top level organizations have utilized the latest in enterprise asset management software, to improve the way business assets are managed and controlled. Enterprise asset management is the pillar to success for companies in the position of asset ownership. Government agencies, organizations and businesses are becoming better equipped to manage their assets from the point of acquisition through disposal. Even simpler assets such as office equipment, cell phones and printers, which typically operate on maintenance contracts, benefit from management through enterprise asset management.

Enterprise Asset Management: The Contract Property Management Solution

Large companies with property consider enterprise asset management a necessary solution to keeping assets in check. Contract property management software provides superior customer and contract reporting software. Its world class technology infrastructure and flexibility have been created to meet changing demands, and have been designed to support standard government managing processes. Processes such as: acquisition, use and disposal, DoD’s IUID initiative and NASA and Department of Defense reporting requirements, are part of a custom solution support program and mission to success. Through cost effective enterprise asset management solutions, software can be customized toward any government or corporate specialty.

Enterprise asset management software solutions contain all lifecycle property management data, at the companies’ fingertips:

•    Information related to the property contract, and all associated item records.

•    Enterprise asset management contract to contract transfers.

•    Transfers between customers or subcontractors in fully supported and recorded data. Information is delivered in a readily usable and supported format.

•    Produces financial reports.

•    Standard forms and processes supported.

Government contractors have utilized enterprise asset management solutions through UID compliance: by identifying, generating, uploading and printing asset information to the IUID registry. Like thegovernment contractor organizations, solutions can be designed to meet the unique needs of various industries.

Software services for enterprise asset management solutions include complete installation and configuration. By working closely with businesses and organizations, asset management firms can configure systems based on unique requirements. The ability to add custom fields or update the names of data fields to coincide with the businesses’ terminology is an included feature of enterprise asset management software set up.

Data migration and custom automated interfaces are included with software installation. This allows a business or agency to have an enterprise asset management software program catered to their specific business, while being guided by an experienced team of knowledgeable technicians, on the best way to implement their system to obtain the best use for their business.

Government and Businesses Rely on Sunflower Systems for Enterprise Asset Management Software

Government agencies and their contractors have been using enterprise asset management software designed and developed by Sunflower Systems for their asset management solution requirements since 1992. Sunflower Systems provides enterprise asset management solutions to over 80 federal agencies, government contractors, publicly-traded companies, universities and research laboratories. Their skilled technicians are on board to assist with installation and configuration in addition to data migration and creating automated software interfaces.  For more information on enterprise asset management solutions visit, Sunflowersystems.

Email Archiving – The Achilles Heel of Document and Records Management

Email has developed into a major communication channel within every company with thousands of them being exchanged every day. As most business critical information is sent over email, it is imperative for companies to archive all records, whether in paper or electronic form for compliance purposes. The need for compliance has been mandatory due to demands made by government and regulatory bodies like the SEC, Sarbanes-Oxley and Basel II, which were primarily driven by instances of email mismanagement. Over the last couple of years more than 90% of disputes have included email as part of the evidence.

According to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, public companies must keep all documents and communications for seven years following an audit. The penalties for destroying or altering a document can include fines of up to million and imprisonment for up to 20 years. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure state that businesses that have the potential to be involved in lawsuits must prepare themselves to turn over email communications, if requested in a court case. Companies who don’t have access to this information may lose lawsuits or incur extra expenses to recover necessary emails. Hence, email is becoming the Achilles heel of document and records management. The best way to protect yourself is through an effective email archiving solution that has become a major challenge for companies.

What is Email Archiving?

Email archiving is an organized way of capturing, saving and protecting every email that moves through your organizations server so that users can access it later, all the while conserving storage space. Email archiving makes it easy to store and manage large volumes of email at a single time and with search and retrieve tools to locate specific emails within minutes, saving companies precious time.

Email archiving not only ensures that the organization remains compliant with applicable laws and regulations; it is the best way to meet eDiscovery requirements. Although email archiving projects are frequently managed by the exchange server administrator, the choice of email archiving software must be carefully evaluated before implementing.

Benefits of Email Archiving

More and more businesses are now using archiving for storage management, to monitor employee communications and for disaster recovery.

Monitoring Employee Communication – This is usually used in legal proceedings where e-mail evidence is requested in association with an employee’s violation of corporate e-mail policies or misuse of business e-mail.

Storage Management – Archiving data helps eliminate past messages and helps free up space on the email server.

Disaster Recovery – Disaster can halt the normal operation of day-to-day business activities. Archiving helps recover the information to the same or to a new server at disk-transfer and LAN speeds. You can recover accidentally deleted or destroyed records that have been archived.

Working without an email archiving solution could be dangerous. Email archiving is perfect for companies who are looking for a solution to protect their mission critical data, reduce server load from emails and preserve data for legal and regulatory compliance requirements.

Staff Management, Trusts, Pensions Used By John Lewis And Marks And Spencer

Introduction

Marks and Spencer (M& S) is a company based in Britain. It is one of the most successful retailers in the United Kingdom with about seven hundred and sixty stores all over the world. It was founded by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer and has Sir Stuart Rose as its Chief Executive. Some of the countries in which the retail sores are found include Japan, Switzerland, Kuwait, India, Poland, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Turkey, and Jersey among others. Most of the stores are found in the UK i.e. they are five hundred and twenty in number. The company deals in the sale of clothing items and also in the food sector. Other items that the company sells include household items, furniture, electronics and other technological devices, it also engages in the sale of coffee. The company has been relatively successful in the industry and even recorded a profit of one billion pounds about nine years ago. It was however faced with a crisis in the year 1998, but it has since recovered from this crisis and is no on a stead rise again. (Faragher, 2007)

The company has been well known for some of the policies it offers to its consumers. One of the policies was that items can be refunded back to customers as long as they had receipts even if the products had been purchased a long time ago. The Company recorded a profit of slightly over half a billion pounds in the year 2006. M& S also boasts of having a large employee base-it has close to seventy one thousand staff members under its wing.

John Lewis was a company is also another retail chain of stores that is slightly smaller than the former mentioned Company. John Lewis (JL) has one hundred and twelve super markets and twenty six stores under its name. There are sixty eight thousand employees working for the Company. JL is well known for the way it shares profits, partnership with emeployees and equity.

Marks and Spencer

Staff management at Mark and Spencer

Marks and Spencer is well k own for the kind of management system that it adopts. This is one of the major contributors towards its corporate identity. Corporate identity is a crucial part of any business because it is what customers recognise about the Company. M& S prides itself in the fact that it has a very strong corporate culture. This simply means that the Company has been having a strong sense of culture and management skills. This has even led to some emulation from certain companies with reference to M&S. However, this does not men that staff management at the Company has not had some flaws. This was especially visible when the Company was forced to close down stores in parts of France. This occurred due to the fact that there were inadequacies about the benefits and job protection offered by Marks and Spencer yet the same incentives were what the Company had become identified with. The Company also failed in communicating adequately to staff members prior to closure. This meant that the Company had found itself in bridge of the law and had therefore revealed weaknesses in its management system. (Dale, 2001)

Trainee Management Schemes in Staff management

This kind of scheme has earned the Marks and Spencer Company an award from the Times. This was ion recognition of the fact that the Company employs a high number of graduates to work for them. It was given position seventeen in this category for this role.

This kind of scheme normally involves provision of training for graduates who may be new to the company or those who may have worked for the company before but are interested in developing themselves within the organisation. This training lasts for a period of twelve months. But before one becomes an accepted trainee within the company, they pass through rigorous training and selection before gaining access into the Company.

First of all, applications are done openly and transparently through the internet. This method is quite appropriate because it ensures that all people who are interested gain access to the process without segregation. All applicants do this through a Communication Centre belonging to Marks and Spencer.  After sending their applications to the Centre, applicants are required to do a psychometric test. Those who pass the test will be deemed capable of performing managerial tasks.

The tests come in two categories. The first is numerical while the other is verbal. The purpose of providing two types of tests is to give a fair chance to differing personalities. This is a very crucial aspect of any fair recruitment process. Reason being that some people are bubbly and talkative and may seem quite impressive during the verbal tests yet such people may be very poor at performing tasks. The numerical tests are also important in analysing other types of personalities. Some people may be shy and withheld during verbal interviews. Others may panic suddenly and consequently loose composure. This other types of tests allow M& S management to zero in on the most suitable candidates and overcome initial barriers in selection. (Berry, 2007)

Applicants are then subjected to an Occupational Personality Test. This type of test aims at investigating what type of personality the applicant possesses. This is because managerial positions can only be done by certain types of personalities. Not everyone is cut out for this kind of position. People who take up managerial positions must be leaders. This means that they must be influential and must be able to affect the actions of other members of staff towards achievement of the goal. This is the reason why the test is done as the last thing during the application.

Finally, members who get accepted into the Company undergo rigorous training for a period of one month. The reason why the duration is slightly long is because the Company would like trainees to be well equipped for the challenges that lay ahead in the managerial positions which they will hold. This Company has the advantage of having young members of society working for it thus encouraging injection of new ideas and brainstorms. A company that is characterised by young people working for it is quite progressive and always incorporates new and creative ideas of doing things. The Company also has unconventional ways of management because of recruiting young staff members to work for it.

Customer service training in staff management

The Company uses a method called Mary Gober to train its staff members. This helps members of staff to be on top of their game when it comes to treatment of customers. This implies that staff members become very well versed in treatment of customers and service delivery is improved. What the training normally provides members of staff is that they are able to treat customers in a friendly way; they are also able to give courtesy to customers and to show them that they are interested in serving them. In addition, members of staff are also equipped with the knowledge to serve customers in the best possible way. This means that they are able to answer any questions asked by clients and their abilities are maximised. (Thomson, 2003)

Members of staff are required to attend seminars where they are informed on how to deal with consumers. These kinds of seminars are common in most of the stores that are affiliated to the chain stores. Consumers and other parties have it easy when they require details about certain issues in the Company because they are able to identify members that have undergone training because they normally wear a brooch on items of clothing.

Charity Awards for volunteer employees – staff management

Marks and Spencer has a programme that has been put in place called Mark and Start. This programme aims at involving most members of staff in volunteer efforts especially towards the disadvantaged in society. In so doing, employees identify with the Company and it creates a strong sense of loyalty and commitment to Mark and Spencer.

The Company gives awards to those who have performed well in charity work. This can be regardless of the fact that the volunteer work was done outside of work time. Awards are also given to those who support a Breast Cancer Campaign or to those who work with local issues that may need assistance. Normally what the Company does, is that it receives applications from is employees. These employees are the ones who feel that they have participated well in Charity events. In the year 2006, there were about three hundred and fifty applicants interested in receiving awards. The Company then follows set criteria to determine who is most suitable for an award and in which category will that person fall under. This process is done with the assistance of experts in that area, one such example is the Charity Aid Foundation. This latter mentioned group also examines applications and gives its recommendations to M&S management concerning judgements. (Staff writer, 2007)

Such awards are a conscious effort in use by the M& S Company to ensure that its employees feel appreciated as any awards given to them are an indication that the Company recognises their efforts ad is willing to boot these efforts through awards. Employees will reciprocate this sign of care through more output in the Company.

Payroll giving Schemes – staff management

The M&S has receives awards from the charity Aid Foundation (CAF) for having payroll giving scheme in place. These awards are given to employers who engage in causes that are geared towards employee motivation and support. For an employer to qualify for an award, they need to be offering a payroll giving scheme. The first thing given to such Companies is a logo to indicate that it has implemented such a scheme. Then the company is given an award depending on the degree which it rewards its employees. This can be ranging from bronze awards. These are awards that are given to employers who pay relatively few employees using this scheme, then there are the silver and gold awards given to employers who engage slightly more than the bronze category and also for those who engage the highest percentage respectively. M& S fell in the gold category and has shown commitment towards staff management and motivation.

IT systems that protect pension scheme details

On 5th May, this year, the Company lost a laptop that had a lot of information regarding staff member’s pension scheme details, names, addresses and other personal details. This potentially put all the people who were enlisted in the laptop at risk of identity theft if a person with a hidden agenda accessed the information in the laptops. But the Mark and Spencer Company had come up with a strategy in Information Technology to protect their employees. The Company had installed passwords to protect the laptop and this meant that information could not be easily accessed without having a go ahead from relevant authorities. This simple yet effective method of protecting personal information ensured that no one faced identity theft and that they were secure. Such kind of protection by the Company contributes towards a feeling of security among employees and consequently leading to motivation.

Personal loans and other types of loans

The Company offers a number of loans for its employees towards the system. The Company offers a low interest rate on such loans for its employees. This is 8.9 % for loans that range between ten thousand and twenty thousand pounds. The firm does not charge any extra charges for the loan regardless of time. This is a relatively fair deal for its employees because most people complain of spending most of their time and resources towards servicing the loan rather than clearing the whole debt. M& S recognises this inadequacy in loaning systems and solves it by providing affordable cover. (Berry, 2007)

The Company has also instituted a number of buying plans for employees who are need of purchasing certain items. One such example is the Car buying plan. The loan is replayed at a very low rate. This is probably because these payments can be deferred. M& S allows up to sixty percent of the loan to be differed.

There are several other types of loan schemes offered by M and S that are all designed towards ensuring that employees can plan for their future or they can implement important projects in their lives. This kind of commitment by the Company gives members of staff the feeling that they have strong back up and that the Company is committed towards their progress. Some other schemes that available in the Company include Holiday Home Safe, Fixed Rate Savings, Save and invest, Travel Money and other types of buying plans.

Provision of good pension schemes and bonuses to employees

The Company rewards its employees through bonuses after the Company has recorded a rise in profits. This was witnessed this year when the Company recorded approximately one billion in profits. The profits were an indication of the sales recorded this year and they were around eight point eight billion pounds. These profits need to be enjoyed by the members who contributed the most to its delivery, these are the employees. Mark and Spencer took a large portion of this amount and gave back to staff members. It gave them eighty million pounds in bonuses.

The bonuses will be enjoyed by all members of staff in the country. There are about seventy thousand of them. However, the Company will give different amounts to different members of staff depending on the weight of their job. For example the Chief executive is due to receive about 1.23 million pounds more that his personal salary which is close to a million pounds. What the Company is doing is not an isolated incident as it offered similar bonuses in the year 2006. Last year it gave seventy three million pounds in bonuses to its employees. (Staff writer, 2007)

M& S do not mind such generous contributions to go to their members of staff in terms of bonuses because the team has predicted increases in he profits they receive. Besides, the company’s shares have almost doubled in the Stock exchange indicating that it is in steady rise and can afford to give mouth watering schemes and bonuses to employees.

The Company has a problem when it comes to pension schemes. This is due to the fact that the Company recorded a deficit of about seven hundred and four million in 2007. This means that there must be strategies to solve the problem. The Company has put in place a scheme that allows it to deal with all the one hundred and twenty three members’ expecting pension payments from it. Members of staff normally receive a specific fraction of their salary for every year that they have worked for M & S. (Sparrow, 1994)

The company has done this through collaboration with the M & S pension scheme fund. Here, M& S gives out property to the pension scheme fund then this same property is leased back to the retailer as the company pays back the pension deficit for a period of fifteen years. This scheme will enable the pension fund to be self sufficient because if the retailer is unable to make payments, then the property is redirected to the fund. This is the breakdown of payments made by the Company with regards to pension schemes for the past two years

2006- forty million pounds in the first quarter

2007- five hundred million

Another plan which the company has implemented towards the pension scheme is through direct or indirect contribution from emeployees’ salaries. The Company has issued out three alternatives to members of the pension scheme; members could decide not to contribute any amount at all to the pension scheme and could consequently receive very low rates on their pensions, or members could give about seven percent of their salary in the next three years and lastly, members could also choose to neglect payments but they must put a limit on the level which their pensioned salaries will reach. This method of solving the pension deficit problem puts the choice in the employee’s hands. If they choose to contribute from their salaries, then they will earn more pensions in the end and if they decide not to, then the amount received will be very low.

John Lewis

Staff management at John Lewis through cooperation with staff

John Lewis most outstanding feature when it comes to employees is the fact that the Company is a worker-coop. This means that members of staff are part owners of the Company. There are set rules and principles on operation o the Company by the employee trust. There are several benefits that have resulted from such an arrangement, the first one being that employees perform to their maximum potential. This is because they will not look at consumers and buyers as a means towards an end, but they will consider them as an income source. They give them utmost attention because they realise that there are direct benefits that come from increased sales. (Guerby, 2006)

The motivating factor behind this kind of treatment is the fact that employees realise that success of the business means success for them. Other types of emeployees simply do not care because they know that whether sales are low or high, they will still get their salaries. Productivity of members in John Lewis staff is quite high because of the reasons mentioned above. This model was adapted after it had been discovered that most professional businesses that were successful were partly owned by workers, these included accounting firms, law firms, medical practitioners and others. Other benefits of co ownership include;

Standards have been raised in the retail industry because of co ownership and competition
Retailers are able to have professional autonomy
Retail workers can come together and exchange ideas on best retail practises
It places a lot of emphasis on human capital as the most vital asset thus showing that property rights theories in economics are true.

John Lewis has served as a role model in this regard for companies who plan on adopting this kind of partnership. One such example of a company is the cosmetics company and chain store Lush which is preparing to follow the JL direction. (Armitage, 2007) Most people may be misguided by the term co ownership and may mistake this to mean that decision making is slow and more emphasis is placed on sustaining the relationship of the company members rather than getting any work done. On the contrary, decision making is not delayed in the Company because the company does not have any stakeholders externally. This means that it can focus on long term decisions instead of making choices that suite the short term. (Guerby, 2006)

Pension scheme arrangements

John Lewis has some challenges in the administration of pension schemes. This is because in the year 2002, the Company had a deficit of about two hundred million. Yet at that same time the company’s assets in the pension scheme fund were about one billion yet liabilities were 0.18 billion more. The Company was however optimistic that those differences were caused by changes in market forces. (Cope, 2002)

Some of the workers in the company began registering complaints that John Lewis was focusing mostly on pension schemes as the amount that was going into the fund was rapidly increasing. However, this was not the case with bonuses. So they were requesting for more funds into the bonus schemes rather than pension. The Company decided to examine the issue and change payments because members whose ages were far from retirement preferred receiving more bonuses and fewer pensions than vice versa. The Company had close to sixty thousand emeployees under its wing. All the emeployees are considered as co owners in the Company. (Cope, 2002)

Salaries and payments to workers

JL has put in place a policy that allows employees to receive a level of performance salary plus the commercial rate that is prevalent at that time. In the year 1998, workers received a bonus of approximately two thousand pounds more than their salaries. This was a considerably good level of pay because most workers in retail worked for very long hours and earned little. This meant that the government had to chip in to be able to cover this difference in payment through income support payments. But this was not the case for JL employees who are catered to adequately. Shown below is a summary of earnings in that year

Total employees 41,100

Full-time employees 24,800

Part-time employees 16,300

Total employees, weighted for part-timers 31,000

Partnership bonus GBP 57.0 mill

Pay (before bonus) GBP 371.3 mill

In the year 2007, the Company had one fifty five million in bonuses for all its employees. This was about eighteen percent of what partners receive in their salary. This was a record increase of twenty nine percent of what partners got in the year 2006.

The Company has also instituted a mechanism for distributing profits as follows; JL removes a percent of the profits earned, this is fifteen percent of the amount earned in profit. The rest is then invested back in the business and used for operation costs or expansion processes. However, there are also net assets that are left behind and these are the one that should be allocated to shareholders.

Acceptance of critism from employees at JL

The Company has instituted a system that attempts to control how managers perform. This is done through anonymous letters that are published internally in a magazine belonging to the Company. Employees can be able to register any problems or complaints that they may have and can therefore bring about change in the Company. (Maund, 2001)

Managers themselves are required to respond to these anonymous letters in a manner that is truthful. They are also supposed to treat each member with respect regardless of their status in the Company. Such an attitude contributes towards employee satisfaction and ensures that all staff members feel like they are part of the team in spite of the amount they earn or skills they posses.

This level of transparency could be the treason why the JL partnership is quite a success at this moment. Managers who accept public scrutiny and critism ensure that they are at their best behaviour to minimise these critisms and to make a good name for themselves. Consequently, critisms raise the standard because managers know that they are subject to correction.

Consultation with staff management

John Lewis is well known for giving its staff the ability to influence decisions and actions in the company through creation of democratic bodies. One such body is the Partnership Council that is made up of all the members of staff. This body has a board and together, members have been granted the power to change management they feel unhappy with after intense consultation. This is especially due to the fact that the Partnership Council even has the mandate to vote out a Chairman. This type of management style ensures that there is accountability as managers are kept on their toes. Some administrators like Personnel director Tracey Killen have even pointed out that they have to rigorously adjust to such a method because every move they make is subject to scrutiny.

In line with this kind of attitude, John Lewis gives its line managers relative autonomy to go about its business. Most of the decisions are independent and it is only when the matter is very serious when the line managers involve the Human Resource Department. This also means that the company is not trying to create an image as being a good employer to the rest of the world or to other competitors; instead it focuses its energies on internal practices.

Other benefits offered by the Company

John Lewis caters for its partners through introduction of certain schemes designed to boost employee’s plans and ensure that they can achieve some of the goals that they have set. The first benefit is the ‘Bonus Save’ scheme. Here employees are allowed to invest some or their entire bonus as shares to the respective contributor. The maximum allowable investment is about four thousand five hundred pounds. (Faragher, 2007)

The ‘golden Jubilee trust’ is another benefit that comes with the Company. Here employees are allowed to work for any charity vent for long durations and may still be paid for the duration when they were away. The company also gives awards for participation in charity events and therefore shows care and concern towards its emeployees that establishing a sense of loyalty amongst them. ‘Once in a lifetime’- This is a trip that can be undertaken by members in the partnership who have formed a group or clubs and societies. Members who apply for funds can go to a destination of choice which they have never visited all their lives.

Incentives to retired members of the Company are also given. Here, members are given benefits even after retirement. Some incentives include access to financial loans, a monthly magazine and also a reunion lunch. Lastly, the Company allows all members of staff to ask for flexible workers hours regardless of marital or family commitments. This means that even if one does not have children or other commitments, they can be granted flexible working hours. (Faragher, 2007)

Conclusion

The two companies examined above have played their parts in providing pension benefits to their employees, engaging them in trusts and also in management styles. John Lewis is identified with a flexible management style and coop ownership. Mark and Spencer is identified with provision of good benefits to its emeployees and allowances. (Maund, 2001)

Reference:

Cope, N (2002): John Lewis weighs final salary pensions revamp; the Independent (29th April)

Guerby, L. (2006): John Lewis and school reform; Retrieved from http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/ accessed on 1st January 2008

Armitage, J. (2007): Lush to adopt John Lewis set up; retrieved from http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/ accessed on 1st January 2008

Faragher, J. (2007):  John Lewis Partnership; working in partnership; Personnel Today Magazine (17th April)

Staff writer (2007): Marks and Spencer: neat pension fund arrangement; Insurance Business Review

Berry, M. (2007): Mark and Spencer to revamp final pension scheme; retrieved from http://www2.marksandspencer.com/thecompany/mediacentre/pressreleases/2007/fin2007-01-23-00.shtml accessed on 1st January 2008

Dale, M. (2001): The Art of HRD: Developing Management Skills        , Vol. 3, Crest Publishing House, New Delhi

Sparrow, P. and Hilltop, J. (1994): European Human Resource Management; Melbourne Press

Maund, L. (2001): An Introduction to Human to Human Resource Management: Theory

And Practice: Macmillan, Palgrave

Maundy, L. (2001): An Introduction to Human Resource Management: Theory and Practice: Macmillan, Palgrave

Thomson, C. and Rampton, L. (2003): Human Resource Management. Melbourne press, New York

Sparrow, P. and Hilltop, J. (1994): European Human Resource Management in

Transition: Prentice Hall, New York

Maund, L. (2001): An Introduction to Human Resource Management: Theory And Practice: Palgrave, Macmillan,

Find More IT Staff Articles

Assessing Trust Between Senior Management and Employees — Employee Surveys Provide Striking Results

Achieving high levels of trust between senior management and employees is essential for the sustainable success of any organization. The best leaders earn the respect and trust of the people they lead. Lack of trust between senior management and employees negatively impacts employee satisfaction, engagement and performance. It also impacts customers, competitiveness and profit. The best senior leaders also trust their employees and their employees know they are trusted. 

Employee surveys are an effective tool for assessing the level of trust between senior management and employees. Well-designed employee satisfaction surveys, employee engagement surveys and employee opinion surveys include direct and indirect questions that measure trust between senior management and employees. 

Senior managers, including CEO’s, presidents, chairpersons, etc. should want to know if they are creating a culture of trust. If the results of employee surveys indicate low levels of trust as measured by low rating scores and comments indicating a lack of trust, executive managers will have information for changing their leadership styles in order to increase trust. 

What is the level of trust between senior management and employees in your organization? If asked, how would your company’s employees describe their level of trust? 

Following are representative comments received in two recent employee satisfaction surveys / employee engagement surveys. One employee survey was conducted for a bank with several hundred employees and the other employee survey was conducted for a professional services company with almost 1,000 employees. The level of trust at each of these organizations was rated by employees at less than 3.5 on a five point scale, where 5 indicates a high level of trust. These ratings were lower than the ratings for most of the other survey questions. The comments are illustrative of comments received in similar employee opinion surveys / employee satisfaction surveys / employee engagement surveys conducted in large and small organizations across many industries: 

1 – Employees have a significant level of distrust in senior management. Some employees do not feel they can bring ideas, suggestions and problems to senior managers due to concerns about negative reactions. There is fear, concerns about favoritism, concerns regarding perceived high levels of employee turnover, and some senior managers are less trustworthy than others. 

2 – Some employees are afraid to share their concerns with senior management for fear of being tagged as a “complainer” or being told “you are just feeling sorry for yourself”. 

3 – I don’t really have much trust in the Management

 4 – Too much favoritism 

5 – This is the same person who I went to when I (and my coworkers) had problems with a certain someone. The problem got pinned on me. Don’t really trust her much. 

6 – If people feel intimidated and are afraid to speak their minds, trust isn’t there. 

7 – Right now morale is down and we are looking for senior management to help change this. I think the trust is not there since last year’s cut back, not that it’s their fault it’s just our perception of trust in the whole organization. 

8 – Our EVP uses personal information against you to get you to do what he wants and I have personal knowledge that he has shared my personal situation with others within the organization. 

9 – Unexpected turnover/employee termination rates reduce trust levels considerably. 

10 – Some of our senior managers are very good, some seem to be clueless at times 

11 – The feeling from a lot of employees is that if they complain about an ineffective or restrictive process, they are black-listed which creates a lack of trust. 

12 -I do not feel that I have anyone to turn to to discuss my concerns or frustrations. Not my supervisor, manager or upper management. I feel this is an important aspect of the workforce as we should always feel there is someone to turn to who truly cares and is concerned. 

13 – Would not go to HR if I had a problem to discuss. It is a shame that we have to feel that way 

14 – You don’t know who you can trust. They encourage you to come forward and then you get stabbed in the back. 

15 – There is a lack of trust due to lack of communication on major issues e.g. merger. 

16 – Not for me personally, but other employees seem to have a very low level of trust between themselves and upper management. 

17 – Employees do not trust Senior Management. There needs to be more transparency to create a level of trust between employees and management. 

18 – I have heard different partners that I work with complain that senior management is not focused on the necessary values in order for the firm to be effective and profitable. 

19 – Some of our senior managers need to hold themselves to the same standards that they hold employees to. Ethical behavior should apply to everyone. 

20 – Everything is kept a secret 

21 – What senior management does seems to be for their own good. I can’t tell that it is with the best interest of other members of the firm. 

22 – Lack of trust is possibly the biggest issue here. 

23 – They are sending our jobs overseas. Why should we trust them? 

24 – While I have “trust” as an individual manager, I know there are multiple managers that do not feel a sense of trust. Frankly, I think it may be more to their inability to communicate “upstream” as opposed to failure at the Management level. We all need to take responsibility for being change agents. I want the Executive Committee and Management to be aware however, that management morale appears to be quite low, and that focus internally is quite important at the moment. 

25 – I’m not saying it isn’t starting to happen, but trust is earned, and we aren’t there yet. 

26 – Executive management acts like they do not trust employees and we don’t trust executive management. There is a lot of tension and we are not focusing enough on customers. There is too much micro-management and lack of authority to make decisions.

A Message from the Archivist – The 2010 Employee Viewpoint Survey

Debt management services – don’t ignore them

Have you found yourself in a bit of a financial black hole, wondering where the money goes? Are you in a position where every month you are struggling to make ends meet, shifting funds around in an attempt to keep your creditors at bay? It’s not an uncommon story the length and breadth of the UK. There are plenty of people in the same leaking debt boat, frantically bailing and trying to work out ways to deal with their financial problems. At least those with the realisation that there is an issue that needs to be addressed are facing up to the less than convenient truth they have money problems and are seeking debt management services to assess the lay of the land and implement a viable debt management solution. They are the fortunate ones.

The poor souls in the worst of trouble are the ones in denial. Those who simply refuse to acknowledge their financial woes and try to avoid tackling them head on with informed and impartial debt advice. The problem (as we all known deep down inside) is that these things just won’t go away of their own accord. And rather than retaining an element of control over events and being in a position to act out of choice, the debt advice deniers soon find themselves hostages to fortune and forced to take drastic measures to sort the situation out.

Which side of the reality line are you on? Do you deal with this through a proper debt management services to craft a viable debt management solution side? Or the head in the sand debt advice avoider, the person who crosses the road to avoid debt management plans for fear that the cold light of day would be too much to take?

As the effects of the recession drag on and increasing numbers of people begin to feel the squeeze on income and savings, so the number of people having to choose between facing up to financial problems or just wishing them away will rise. Now is the time to realise that there is plenty of help at hand if you want it. Experienced, impartial and best of all… free. Debt management services that can quickly and expertly help you turn your financial problems around, saving you both money and sleepless nights in the process.

Organization with Computerized Maintenance Management Software

Are you tired of those maintenance work orders cluttering up your desk? Are you tired of those same work orders getting lost? Or, maybe you’re tired of trying to keep accurate records by hand on maintenance procedures performed to the machinery? No matter what the case may be, if you need to add some organization to your maintenance department and possibly even simplify some of the processes, all while making the department more efficient, then computerized maintenance software is your answer.

The maintenance department is typically a very busy department within any company, and organization is the key to keeping the department and technically, the rest of the business running smoothly; therefore, special attention needs to be paid to this department. But, in the past, this seems to always be the department that gets overlooked; however, nowadays, technology has caught up and computerized maintenance programs are making lives easier and maintenance departments more efficient.

Does your maintenance department need help? If so, then contact a CMMS (computerized maintenance management software) vendor to learn more about this amazing technology that can prove to be very beneficial to any company. Learn how it can keep track of upcoming maintenance procedures or how it lets you schedule maintenance procedures during low production times. With this computerized maintenance software installed in your maintenance department, there will be no more unplanned downtime from necessary broken machinery causing your business to get behind and your losses to increase.

Any CMMS vendor that is serious about their product will provide you with a representative of their company to come into your company, install, and set up this program for you. This means that getting the program to work properly is their number one concern, because if it doesn’t, it’s not any good to you and they stand behind their product and their work. This is why they typically should also offer customer support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They know you are not a computer wizard or a software geek, and so will provide you with a superior level of customer service in order to ensure you and your company great success with this software program.

Find More Maintenance Management Software Articles

Email Compliance and Records Management

Can you imagine living without email? How would you communicate your business needs, information and messages? All businesses across all industries use email systems to send and receive messages and communications. This form of communication has provided quicker response times making it easier to get our jobs done. Most companies depend on email as their primary form of communication and are more efficient because of it. However, email can also cause problems for businesses that don’t use it the right way. The abundance of email communication has caused the government to step in and take action against unlawful email actions. Now more than ever, it is vital for corporations to manage their email systems and ensure they are meeting government standards and regulations.

Recent government regulations affect all businesses–large and small companies alike. The Government is focused on regulating and protecting confidential customer information, corporate governance, law enforcement investigations, and overall proper corporate email management. Here are a few of the issues involving email in business today: Policy development and management, Email retention, Employee monitoring, Patch management, Spam, Legal liabilities, Confidentiality of intellectual property and Data integrity.

There are many companies that offer email records management solutions, but Estorian’s LookingGlass stands out above all. It provides one of the more seamless knowledge based email management solutions for corporate messaging. Estorian has developed an innovative solution that addresses the complex worlds for managing corporate email and messaging systems. Estorian’s LookingGlass e-mail records management system helps organizations meet the growing challenges of enforcing email use policies, controlling growth and resource costs, complying with federal and state email retention requirements, easy access and retrieval, and identifying misuse and abuse of corporate email systems.

www.jatheon.com – Why Archive Email? Jatheon Plug n Comply appliance is a complete solution that allows organization to comply with government regulation with a simple, secure and integrated product. Plug n Comply is the industry leading appliance that effectively captures, indexes and stores all email and instant messaging enabling you to enhance email management and achieve regulatory compliance needs. Maintaining a sole record or email communication is mission critical to business today. In addition companies must be prepared act quickly in the case of litigation or compliance regulations. Jatheons email archiving solutions are being used by companies all over the world across all industries. Whether it be law firms, banks, insurance companies, engineering firms, health care agencies, and municipal and federal agencies, all companies no matter what the size, see a need for the Jatheon email archiving solution. The Jatheon solution helps organizations meet their storage space management, compliance, legal discovery, mail platform migration and policy management requirements. Overall, Jatheon offers a comprehensive, cost effective and easy to deploy archiving appliance that requires minimal IT support and simple management of corporate data, making it a suitable solution for companies of all sizes. Jatheons email archiving appliance has a number of different ROI characteristics that make the decision making process a relatively easy one. * Reduced overall capital …
Video Rating: 5 / 5

Debt Management and why it matters

Debt management isn’t just a fancy way of borrowing from Peter to pay Paul or taking out an even larger loan to settle money owed. Debt management and debt management programs play a vital role in helping individuals and companies get to grips with the state of their finances and cope with their financial obligations. It’s a way of cutting through the fear and concern surrounding debt and getting to the very heart of how best to organise it so that it can be repaid as cost effectively and as efficiently as possible.

It’s worth remembering too that when it comes to debt it isn’t just the creditors who suffer through not being paid what they are due. Debt management services are there as much to help alleviate the stress and the pain of a situation from the debtor’s perspective. Problems that if left unmanaged and allowed to continue to run their natural course might easily spiral out of control and make the situation worse for all parties. If you owe money that you are finding difficult to repay or have been in that situation in the past then you will know how unpleasant it can be. It’s in no-one’s interests for debt to remain unpaid and unmanaged.

One more thing to bear in mind is that if you do find yourself in the unfortunate position of having to seek debt management, UK agencies that are impartial and independent are on hand to help you avoid the less scrupulous organisations that thrive on people’s financial weakness. These less scrupulous organisations may, if you are not careful, leave you in a significantly worse state than the one you started in. In other words, if you are in the difficult position of owing money that you are struggling to repay and find yourself with limited options, then you are potentially vulnerable to exploitation. Going to debt management services that have no vested interest in partisan support for one side or the other can help you avoid that situation.

Fortunately when it comes to debt management. UK consumers are lucky enough to have a wide range of free, independent and experienced debt management programs offering experienced and helpful debt management advice and guidance to help you turn your situation around.

Find More Debt Management Articles