Take some initiative

By Lindsay,
Sometimes being the owner of a small business I forget what it's like to be an employee.  Still I would expect my staff to take the initiative when it comes to making their jobs easier.  However here's some real life examples of employees who should have taken the initiative.

1.  Sales Manager for multi million dollar company.  Distributed sales team.  A team member leaves, but not before deleting all emails and contacts and other documents relating to customers in their territory.  I had mentioned that using a simple cloud based CRM system such as Solve360 (www.norada.com) could have tied the team together, centralised data, and eased the reporting problem (I mean what sort of sales manager requests weekly customer visit reports anymore........).  Now the process of getting the expenditure of approx $50/month approved by 'management' would have taken a long time.  I did expect the Sales Manager to have paid for it himself - taking the initiative.  End result - years of data lost....

2.  Receptionist has a small monitor on her computer.  She stares at it 8 hours per day and it's really annoying.  I suggest buying a second hand monitor (say 19 inch) for $100.  Not going to spend her money.  End result - productivity is reduced, and stress levels rise.

3.  Worker would like a printer connected to her machine so she can print out documents without going upstairs.  I suggest a sub $100 laser printer.  That capital expenditure won't be approved I'm told.  So I lend her a $99 printer.  4 toner replacements later (operational not capital expenditure) It's still there.  End result - I'm happy with the margins from the toner replacement.  And it's still my printer.