End of the Year Management 101

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The end of any given year is always a challenge. Even if your fiscal year runs contrary to the Gregorian calendar, managing time, people, expenses and other resources in December can leave you waiting with bated breath, and perhaps a serious lack of patience, for the New Year holiday.

So, how did the end of the calendar year become such a challenge to manage? After all, you still have staff to do the work, and many of them come to work this time of year in a festive mood. This should translate to more work and less stress, right?

That’s not necessarily true since many employees save a significant amount of time off for the end of the year, and in our undeniably now global society, not everyone celebrates the same holidays, requiring the use of different vacation or PTO days than the traditional Christmas to New Year’s week. Couple that with the increased demand of customers and clients who also want things done before their holidays begin, and you generally end up scrambling even more than usual to make staffing assignments and provide resources to meet that demand.

Don’t get me wrong – this is not a bad thing in any way, shape or form. I, for one, enjoy celebrating the various holiday traditions and exploring those for which I have very little knowledge or experience. I guess it’s the one-time-sociology-major coming out, allowing me to revel in the opportunity to explore different ways of looking at life and business.

Over the years, I have picked up a few tidbits here and there about meeting end of the year management challenges, and have listed three of them.

Make Company Holidays Flexible. As I mentioned earlier, different cultures celebrate different holidays. If your company’s annual holidays include 2 or more days for Christmas, make them floating holidays that can be taken by employees of different faiths when their holidays fall. This provides your company with staff coverage for clients during traditionally slow periods. Global companies staff their offices 24/365 because they recognize the importance of being there for the customer when they are looking for something. Having flexible authorized holidays makes this possible.

Choose and Support a Nonprofit All Year Long. Resource allocation, including staff, is one of the greatest challenges in December. If your company supports a nonprofit by allowing staff to volunteer during work hours, implement a program to encourage staff to do so every month of the year, rather than just December. Having worked in the nonprofit community for almost 30 years, I can tell you that they need your support on a consistent basis; not just on Thanksgiving and Christmas. In fact, the need for those supporting the homeless and less fortunate is often greater in the first quarter of the year once winter really sets in.

Be Flexible in Managing the Generations of Your Workforce. Although I've written about this before, I think it still bears repeating. There are at least four different generations in the current workforce, all with differing needs and means of communication. Yes, you can teach an old dog a new trick, but that doesn't mean he likes it, or embraces it willingly. Likewise, puppies have boundless energy and their own ways of doing things that an older dog can’t fathom. However, that doesn't mean that one way of doing something is better than the other; they are just different. Don’t forget to keep that in mind when confronted with a management decision.

All in all, the end of the calendar year can be an exciting and busy time with its own unique management challenges. Although I've only listed three, I’m sure there are many, many more ideas, so please feel free to share yours.

Editor's Note: This blog post also appears on LinkedIn.

Before founding her own consulting firm in 2013, Dawn Gannon served as a respected project management and administrative operations professional in the military, higher education, and women’s healthcare fields for 25 years. She holds a Masters of Business Administration and a Graduate Certificate in Organizational Management from American Public University, is a contributor on LinkedIn, and the author of the Management in Motion blog.

Dawn currently serves as the Past Chair of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s Women’s Council, and teaches health and safety classes for the American Red Cross. As an infertility survivor she has been a featured speaker within the Fertility Community, and written numerous articles on the topic of childfree living. 

The Great Escape - Ingenuity & Determination

Editor's Note: This blog post also appears on LinkedIn.

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posted on www.breitbart.com

Webster’s Dictionary defines the word Ingenuity as “skill or cleverness that allows someone to solve problems.” 

As the World War II allies celebrated the 70^th anniversary of the D-Day invasion that started the liberation of France over the weekend, an 89 year-old British D Day Veteran living in a care home that was told he could not go to the celebrations used his gift of ingenuity and simply walked away.

His story, now being billed as the “great escape,” speaks volumes about his determination to reunite with his fellow D-Day veterans, and to honor those who gave the ultimate price for freedom. Telling care givers that he was just going for a walk, while accurate, did not convey the totality of his walk about, as Britons would say. He simply didn’t mention he was going to walk to a specific location to catch a bus, and then a ferry, to attend the ceremonies on the beaches of Normandy because “it was the right thing to do.”

I have always been awed by the Greatest Generation, and found myself awed once again while watching Queen Elizabeth II placing a wreath at the Commonwealth War Graves ceremony on Friday, when I realized that most of those attending the event were most likely small children or had not even been born yet when D-Day took place. She, on the other hand, was training and serving as a driver in the Auxiliary Territorial Service during World War II. Even as sheltered as she was as a Royal, she wanted to do her part because “it was the right thing to do.”

What does “the great escape” and Queen Elizabeth’s services during World War II have to do with business, you ask? 

Simply this: at times, true leadership requires ingenuity and determination to motivate a team, enlighten those who don’t yet see the vision clearly, and lead the charge onto the metaphorical business beach their organization is charged with taking to achieve their goals. 

It also requires leading with courage and valor like that shown by the Allied soldiers who participated in the D-Day event, because "it is the right thing to do."

Reflecting once again on the enormity of the ultimate price paid by those on the beaches of Normandy in 1944, I am thankful for not only the freedom their sacrifice provided, but also for the examples of ingenuity and determination that generation still exhibits 70 years on.

Before founding her own consulting firm, Dawn Gannon served as a respected project management and administrative operations professional in the military, higher education, and healthcare fields for 25 years. As a Lean/Six Sigma Green Belt, Dawn’s commitment and personal mission to improve the lives of others through service to the community focuses on providing administrative and volunteer management, consumer education, public outreach, event planning, relationship-building efforts, and strategic planning. She is a contributor on LinkedIn, the author of the Management in Motion blog, and has written a number of articles for RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association on the topic of childfree living.

What Do You Mean, "Happy Festivus?"

“Happy Festivus!” Those were my words to a group of Millennials last night as I was leaving to go home.

Their response – “what’s Festivus?”

“Really?” I asked, and then followed with, “In the words of George Takei, ‘Oh myyyyy.’” 

Their response – you guessed it – who is George Takai?

At that moment I felt really old. Then I realized that it was an excellent example of the differences between the Baby Boomer generation – of which I am a part, and the Millennials – which they represent. The Seinfeld television episode where Frank Costanza explains how the holiday came to be first aired in 1997, when the Millennials were just babies. Of course they won’t understand!

Similarly, in talking with a nephew recently the subject of Lucille Ball was raised. He listened for a few minutes to the adults around him talking, and then bravely asked, “Who is Lucile Ball?”

Again – really? Sigh…this generation really missed a LOT!

Over the last few years, academic and business researchers have been writing more and more often about the challenges of working with and managing employees from four separate generations: the Greatest Generation (born before 1946), Baby Boomers (1946 – 1964), Generation X (1965 – 1980), and Gen Y or Millennials (1981 – 2000).

The challenges facing management today include not only in developing a good working relationship with individuals from separate eras, but also recognizing that there are also significant differences in how they communicate, view their time with your company in both length and purpose, compensation, motivation, collaboration and training, just to name a few.

Each generation grew up with different experiences and values, while witnessing different world events as children rather than adults, and entered a world completely different from their parents from a technology perspective. 

The challenge, then, is to learn to not only understand the differences, but to manage in a way that meets the needs of each generation. Without meeting them where they are, and in a manner in which they can understand and respond appropriately, chaos will eventually ensue, and you will be looking for another new employee – again.

There are several books, published studies and other materials available to help you make the best decision for your specific situation. One of the better articles I have found was written by Jan Ferri-Reed in the April 2012 issue of the Journal for Quality and Participation.  In this piece, Jan focuses on ways to work proactively and effectively with Millennials by helping the reader understand why they think so differently, and place higher or lower values on things other generations deem non-negotiable or unacceptable.

There are other bodies of work describing the differences, and how to effectively manage them, but I would love to hear your thoughts. How do you work best with the different generations? What works, what doesn’t, and if you know – why?

As you are considering your response, please also take a moment to celebrate the differences, and celebrate Festivus – a Festivus for the rest of us!

Before founding her own consulting firm, Dawn Gannon served as a respected management professional in the military, higher education, and healthcare fields for 25 years. As a Lean/Six Sigma Green Belt, Dawn’s commitment and personal mission to improve the lives of others through service to the community focuses on providing administrative and volunteer management, consumer education, public outreach, event planning, relationship-building efforts, and strategic planning. She is also a published author on the topic of childfree living.