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SENIOR’S SOLUTIONS NUMBER 23


Finding ways to operate more quickly and efficiently frees up time to focus on what really matters – customer satisfaction, says Grahame Senior


How to make time Concentrate on solutions


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ands up if in this chal- lenging climate you have too much to do and not enough time... Step forward if you find your-


self not knowing what to do next and how to get it all done. This recession- ary period offers all of us in business some pretty fearsome challenges. The Sunday supplements keep telling us we are the “time-poor” gen- eration in our personal lives – we are certainly time-challenged when it comes to operating our businesses. However, there is some hope and help if you approach it in the right way.


Experience and necessity are both great teachers I have been operating in independent business for more than 40 years and this is my fourth recession. Along the way, I have learned quite a few things about working effectively with the mar- ket to make the most of difficult times. I’ve also picked up some ways of maintaining and motivating the team during periods when they’re faced with heavier workloads and tighter rewards. Some of these have been shared in recent columns but one thing I have not yet covered is what I have learned about self-management, time-manage- ment and working more efficiently.


Time is money Many of us face diffi- cult choices in terms of marshalling our human resources and some of the luxuries of in-depth support on administra- tive and management processes have had to go. Many people run- ning leisure businesses are having to do more personally, ensuring their teams are focused on the front line of guest rela- tions and guest satisfaction. Everybody is looking for value. That


means that even if our bookings are good, our yield is under pressure. In many areas, particularly energy, util- ities and public sector, operational charges such as rates and refuse col- lection costs keep rising. Many of us have been through the process of care- fully assessing and rationalising our human resources and have done our best to shave some of the cost with- out damaging the quality of our guest services. It all leads in one direction – more to do and less time to do it.


Making more time One of the plus factors of these reces- sionary times is that people are more realistic about what is possible and


TOO LITTLE TIME? TRY THESE SENIOR’S SOLUTIONS


1 Cut down on meetings – increase on-the-job discussion.


2 Cut down paper communication – focus on e-communication.


3 Just do it once. Don’t pick it up, put it down and wait for another day. Deal with it now.


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4 Simplify business operational systems and ensure as much time as possible is focused on guest service and satisfaction.


5 Keep smiling at people and make time to say thank you to your employees. Have some downtime with the team.


Read Leisure Management online leisuremanagement.co.uk/digital


practical. Generally speaking, team mem- bers tend to be more flexible and highly moti- vated to be helpful and cooperative in changes in working practices. One of the prime strategies for making more time is to get the whole team together and review the work-


ing practices – in particular, who does what. Send everybody a questionnaire about their working routine. Once you have all the results together, you can identify clearly where there is dupli- cation of responsibility and waste. Cutting out duplication on processes can simplify things and, as well as making the business more efficient, it makes the working day more straight- forward. You will often get some really valuable inputs from the team on this. They see what you don’t. Another strategy that can be very effective is to revisit the operating manual and bring it up to date. You are likely to find things in there which simply aren’t done as written, either because they don’t work that way or because things have changed. Removing redundant activities and sharpening the whole thing up helps focus on what is actually important in the current state of the business.


Just do it once


This probably applies more to your own routine as a manager/proprietor than anything else but I have found it a very good discipline. I think we are all famil- iar with bad habits of equivocation. We look at documents or opportunities, consider options, get halfway towards a solution and then put the file down, getting involved in something else. Instead of tackling the problem, resolv-


ISSUE 2 2012 © cybertrek 2012


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