As workers strive to create balance between challenging careers and a satisfying home life, employers who engender a culture of workplace flexibility continue to realize the benefit of improved talent retention. Additionally, research has established that employees who are provided with flexible work options are not only more productive, but more loyal.
In recent years, employers have begun to realize that policies and procedures that lack flexibility often lead workers to choose between family obligations and practicing outright defiance, which often results in mutually detrimental outcomes. Increasingly, corporate leadership is invested in promoting a culture of workplace flexibility so that workers and their families can experience improved well-being. In the recent Corporate Voices for the Workplace blog “Walking the Talk: Creating a Culture of Flexibility”, author Dina Bakst cites the results conveyed by one employer. The CEO of Menlo Innovations in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Richard Sheridan, attributes policies such as allowing mothers to bring their children to work among those that helped the firm achieve a 4 percent turnover rate and a mere 1 percent rate of absenteeism. While some employees remain reluctant to avail themselves of flexible benefits, progressive managers continue to adopt and support such policies to the benefit of all concerned. About the Author: For more than two decades, Paul Van Essche has served as a management consultant to private- and public-sector enterprises, including the World Health Organization, Dupont de Nemours, and Citibank. He is the founder and CEO of van Essche & Associates, a firm specializing in consulting on business effectiveness and efficiency. See www.vanessche.com for more information about Mr. Van Essche.
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Top-level managers and executives who wish to improve their company’s profitability and efficiency can achieve both by implementing basic performance management strategies. An effective business leader employs performance management techniques that include the following:
-- Plans and goals: Employees perform better when they know what is expected of them and of their team, department, and business because they understand the larger context of their responsibilities, which imparts greater meaning to their work. -- Regular reviews: Checking in regularly to offer evaluations of employee performance (and correct course if necessary) keeps everyone on the same page and prevents unpleasant surprises at annual review time. -- Educational opportunities: In order to continue growing and improving, employees must have opportunities to expand their skill sets. -- Rewards: Demonstrating that positive performances are rewarded (and that negative ones are not) motivates workers. -- Employee engagement at all levels: Consulting employees about plans, goals, and growth opportunities empowers them and keeps them engaged in their role and the larger company culture. About Paul van Essche In his work coaching senior-level business executives in leadership and decision making, Paul van Essche offers strategies for managing individual performance as well as big-picture change. Van Essche has worked with the United Nations and currently leads his own business consulting firm. Check out his Web site: www.vanessche.com. During several tenures as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) with employers and sometimes with clients as “Interim CTO/CIO”, Paul van Essche has developed and implemented a number of technology strategies and software systems, including ERP, MRP, and custom solutions.
Question: Is there a generally accepted definition for what a CTO does? Paul van Essche: Not in my experience. The definition is both variable and continuously evolving. For example, the CTO may be primarily responsible for upgrades to the company’s computer equipment and applications, and generally keeping the IT lights on. In a more recent context, the role might be very different, and highly connected to the business front-line, while the day-to-day IT work and infrastructure is outsourced. In the latter case, the CTO is said to be “client-connected,” and plays an active role in translating customer requirements into solution design and implementation, while his or her back-end responsibilities are more about managing contracts with service providers. Question: What traits must a CTO have? van Essche: A CTO has to be able to make decisions about how to either develop or implement information technology in such a way as to improve the company’s bottom line. That means that the CTO must have a grasp of what is happening in the market, what the company’s long- and short-term goals are, what customer needs are, and how those factors are likely to shift in coming months and years. These abilities clearly favor the front-facing role we just discussed, so the CTO must also be able to operate and think along with other C-level executives, rather than being just the resident techie. These days a CTO needs creative vision and strategic nous as much as the CEO or CFO does. Question: When did CTOs first come on the scene? van Essche: If you think about it, since the beginning of humanity! Fire, wheels and the shaduf were all the emerging technologies of their day, and somebody was no doubt in charge. But as technology has come to signify information technology more predominantly, and we sometimes use CIO and CTO interchangeably, I guess we had CTOs as early as the 1970s and 1980s, though they likely reached ubiquitous status during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s. |
Paul van EsscheEngineering and Management Consulting Archives
October 2013
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