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February 9, 2011

Why Teleworking is essential in bad weather

Filed under: Green Business, Prevention — Tags: , , — Administrator @ 4:42 pm

When the weather looks ominous, so does the productivity of your company.  Inclement weather causes many employees to reconsider risking a potentially hazardous commute to work.  Instead of losing productivity, why not consider having employee’s telework during sever weather?

Teleworking is a work arrangement where employees have the choice to work from home or from their office.  In harsh weather conditions teleworking is mutually beneficial to both the company and the workforce.

For an employee, being able to telework during difficult weather saves a potentially long and/or dangerous drive to work.  The less time employees have to take off from work due to weather conditions, the happier they are as they can use their time off for other reasons.  An overall boost of morale can also be had when you show your employees that you care about their safety and respect them enough that they can be trusted to work from home.

Employers benefit just as much as the employee.  Absenteeism and tardiness due to hazardous road conditions decreases and productivity increases. Businesses that offer teleworking options are more attractive to potential employees and retaining top talent.

Allowing employees to work at home during bad weather also gives your company a strong reputation of putting your clients and customers first. With teleworking on the rise, fierce competition, and technology advancements such as cloud computing, telling your clients you couldn’t reach them ‘due to the weather is just not a viable excuse anymore, especially when dealing with clients who are not in the same geographical location as your company.

To ensure teleworking success, make sure your employee’s have the proper technology, software, and high speed internet at home.  Also have policies and procedures in place to make certain expectations are being met.

When you empower employees to make a proper decision about their safety, not only does productivity boost, employee moraledoes as well.  Teleworking provides a happy balance of employee safety and company profitability. For more information about teleworking benefits and how to start a teleworking program visit teleworktoolkit.com.

February 1, 2011

Lean the fat out of your business in 2011

Filed under: Green Business, Lean — Administrator @ 3:13 pm

New year, new business goals to make – so why use last year’s approach? Lean is a principle for eliminating gluttonous waste in your business, allowing for maximum profit. Using lean practices creates:

  • Value for your customers
  • A work environment that fosters employee excellence

Developed in the 30’s by Toyota Motor Group for their manufacturing plant, Lean practices now encompasses many industries including yours.

How does lean work?

The main focus of lean is to continuously distinguish wastes in the workplace and eradicate them. The 7 common types of waste are:

  1. Defects or errors in products and/or services
  2. Overproduction
  3. Inventory
  4. Non-Value Added Processes
  5. Unnecessary Movement
  6. Waiting
  7. Transportation

Value Stream Mapping is an excellent way to put your workplace on a lifestyle change by finding the fat in your workplace and losing it!

Value Stream Mapping

Value stream mapping is diagramming and mapping services to see which processes are and are not working. This will improve overall efficiency. To implement value stream mapping start by identifying a product or service. Draw the steps and processes the product or service take from start to finish and assess what would be considered one of the 7 wastes and eliminate it. Keep in mind, as your business is a continual work in progress, so is Lean. Lean is not a “crash diet”; it is a lifestyle change for your business.

Here is an example on how Lean can help a business. Say you own a pizza place and a customer orders a pizza with half pepperoni and half onions and peppers. Jane at the counter writes the order down and when she hangs up the phone, she inputs it into the computer and throws away the piece of paper. In the back, John receives the order and starts to make the pizza. While John is working on this order, he is making several cheese and pepperoni pizzas as he thinks it will be a busy night due to a big football game. When the pizza is finished, John negates other orders he is making to walk up to Jane with the order. She will then hand it off to the Jack, the delivery person. If a value stream map were created for this scenario you would see all the wastes in this situation:

Jane
Writing down the order on a piece of paper and transferring it to the computer is non-value added process and is also creating a margin for error, as she may have written the order down incorrectly. If Jack delivers the wrong order, the pizza will now have to be recreated, resulting in a loss of effort, transportation and money. To utilize lean, Jane would pick up the phone and type the order into the computer at the same time. Reading the order back to the customer would also ensure the proper order went through.

John
Creating more pizzas than expected, John is overproducing. What if the night doesn’t go as John predicted? The pizzas would become waste. Bringing the order up to Jane while he has other orders to tend to, John is also creating unnecessary movement. To utilize lean, pizzas should be made as the orders come in and John should stay in the kitchen area.

Jack
Instead of waiting for the pizza delivery to come to him, it would be more efficient for Jack to take the pizza from the kitchen to allow less hand offs.

This scenario shows how value stream mapping and identifying waste can contribute to an overall customer experience. Lean is a continuous process and it involves employee initiatives and feedback. John, Jack and Jane can make constant changes to the future state of the order/delivery process to minimize efforts and maximize profits.

Why lean is so instrumental towards a successful business is it creates thinking among staff members on how to make processes simpler and more efficient. When you cut the unwanted fat from your business, profit margin becomes higher and customer value is added.

March 17, 2010

Green Company Spotlight On: NEC

Filed under: Green Business — Tags: , , — Administrator @ 7:32 pm

leafNEC, a trusted brand used by Spaulding Hill Networks has been serious about excellent products and services as well as taking care of the environment. They have been environmentally conscious since the early 1970s when green was just a color.

A few facts about NEC’s initiative follow:

• NEC has publicly committed itself to reducing its net-impact CO2 footprint to zero by 2010.
• NEC has been developing bioplastics for years, replacing petrochemical plastics in product cases and internal parts.

• Plans call for bioplastic side panels (made from corn) to be introduced in the fall of 2008 as optional parts on new telephone terminals.
• By 2010, NEC plans to switch 10 percent of its petrochemical plastics to bioplastics.

• NEC’s Eco Symbol label program, initiated in 1998, now appears on 5,273 NEC products in 55 product categories. In order for an NEC product to carry the Eco Symbol, it must meet all environmental soundness standards established by NEC Corporation.
• NEC Unified Solutions’s new business communications products are in line with NEC’s stated goals of reducing the net-impact of its CO2 footprint to zero by 2010. Our Green Initiative is responsible for:

• Lowering the power consumption of these products
• Complying with RoHS manufacturing standards:

• Eliminating chemicals that drive up CO2 emissions
• Using chemicals that are environmentally safe
• Eliminating lead and mercury from circuit boards

• Since 2002, NEC has funded a tree-planting program on Kangaroo Island, Australia

• Since the program’s inception:

• NEC has planted 750 acres of forests each year. (Currently 5,250 acres).
• NEC will maintain the forests through 2020, reaching 1 million tons of CO2 absorbed with approximately 6,750 acres planted

NEC was Green long before it was “Cool to be Green”.

NEC has been environmentally conscious since the 1970s:

1971 – NEC issues Environmental Management Guidelines, directing NEC managers to pursue green policies.
1991 – NEC publishes an Environmental Charter, seven “action plans” to be followed by every NEC employee. Just one of the seven: “To produce energy- and resource-saving products, while giving careful thought to environmental safety issues in development and planning.”
1998 – NEC initiates an internal environmental labeling system to help promote the development of environmentally sound products. Only NEC products that meet or exceed NEC’s highest environmental soundness standards can display the NEC “Eco” Symbol.” Currently, 5,273 products in 55 product categories carry it. The numbers are continually increasing.
2002 – NEC launches its Forestation Program. It is committed to planting 6,750 acres of trees by 2010. NEC’s commitment to maintaining the forests runs through 2020 when the annual volume of CO2 absorbed by the trees could approach one million tons.
2007 – NEC releases its Environmental Management Vision 2010 which publicly commits NEC to reducing its net CO2 footprint to zero by 2010. Over the last decade, the company has made great strides in reducing its CO2 emissions.
2008 – NEC Unified Solutions introduces new products that are both power efficient and compliant with RoHS green manufacturing standards. NEC introduces optional side panels made of bioplastics on new terminals.

If you are interested in going with a quality product that is environmentally conscious please feel free to contact us at 1-866-441-7469.

March 10, 2010

Telecommuting: Providing Green for the environment and Green for your Wallet

Filed under: Green Business — Tags: , , , , — Administrator @ 3:51 pm

Green Thinking

The latest way to be a responsible and a profitable green company is to telecommuting. Most jobs involve an employee sitting in front of a computer instant messaging, emailing, or calling employees that are down the hall or in the next cubicle over, all of this can be done from home minus the employee distractions that slowly cost a company money. The investment on telecommuting is minimal but the returns are beneficial to an employer, an employee, and the environment.

As an employer you would like to attract and retain loyal talent. Employees with a telecommuting benefit have more family time which leads to less stress and better productivity which equals savings to the employer. In a 2008 survey by Computing Technology Industry Association (Comp TIA), 67 percent of respondents said their organizations were productive thanks to part-time and full-time telecommuting. You also have a chance to tap into hidden talent which may not have been available before (mothers with young children, handicapped, people living in remote areas).

In a survey taken by Treehugger.com, employees were still willing to take a 10% pay cut to work from home even through a tough economy. Just think, 10% of a $50,000 salary equals a company saving of $5,000, and this isn’t even including savings due to sick days, emergencies, weather related impairments, and electricity costs! Employees don’t feel the full brunt of the loss either, the average savings to the employee can be from $2,500 – $11,000 in transportation, lunch, daycare and other expenses. A happy employee is a profitable employee!

A profitable employee makes for a profitable business. Unscheduled absences due to weather, health, and family issues cost an employer $1,800 a year per employer and 25% of traffic accidents occur on a daily commute to work. Think of a small business with 10 employees-that is a loss of $18,000 per year.

Along with payroll savings, the office environment can be leaned down providing additional funds for other investments. Telecommuting reduces office-based consumption because the telecommuter is bearing the energy cost for remote office equipment. Telecommuting can also reduce the amount of actual office space needed and office supplies ordered.

Importantly, Telecommuting is green and Going Green is one of the hottest trends widespread, as it should be. If everyone who had the opportunity to telecommute could, we as a society could save 9.7 billion gallons of gas, which in turn would save 84 million tons of toxic greenhouse gases a year! Less traffic congestion equals fewer emissions to deteriorate the ozone. Both customers and employees are demanding a greener business lifestyle and telecommuting is an effective way to Go Green and benefit the employee, your business and Mother Nature.

Telecommuting is a minimal investment with high returns. Companies that incorporate Telecommuting have happier and loyal employees, which in turn have a higher productivity rate that also reduces overhead and maximizes profit. Most importantly you are making an impact on the environment-which might be the most enduring advantage of all.

Spaulding Hill Communications would like to help you Go Green by providing IP accessories for your employee’s virtual offices. Please contact us at 1-866-441-7469 to find out more.