Partnering for success: Benefits of Proactive Order Placement

Procrastination: a vice that we all still struggle with to some degree. As children, we were warned of its repercussions through nursery rhymes and folk tales. As students, we were constantly reminded of the importance of studying and giving enough time to complete assignments, and now, as responsible adults, we are slaves to our financial commitments, taxes and the many administrative tasks that form a constant cacophony of what we should be doing in place of more favorable tasks.

Admittedly, though few and far in between, there are some rare situations where procrastination serves a purpose. For those of you who work better under the pressure of tight deadlines produced from holding off on a task, you definitely thrive on the heightened sense of creativity that follows.

Unfortunately though, for every good there is a bad. One area in particular, where procrastination is assured to spell imminent disaster, is the business world. To elaborate, first you must recognize that we all live in an age where businesses strive to operate at peak efficiencies and gain market share. By utilizing all tools at their disposal to gain access to knowledge, this provides insight into trends that dictate the pace of business tomorrow. In short, success is the opposite meaning of procrastination.

In my opinion, one aspect of business that should be given more proactive attention is workforce development. It is strange to think that there are businesses out there that still have not awakened to the understanding that the success of a company is squarely set on the caliber of people they employ.

Certainly I understand that the building of a company’s workforce and the development of their talent is not last on the list – if so businesses would be constantly on the brink of bankruptcy. But I firmly believe workforce development is sometimes easily overlooked for the fact that people often do not recognize the effort needed to successfully attract, retain and grow employees (especially in this market). Invariably, this is a symptom of the operational outsourcing of human resources to third party services which, while efficient, creates a disconnect and native HR becomes a lost process.

Should an organization be able to re-prioritize their workforce needs, the benefits are truly endless. Everything is driven by the implementation of proper planning of all operational projects including production and manufacturing requirements. A company should sit down with all management before the beginning of their new fiscal and coordinate annual projects of each department, then build the resources needed to support along with timelines. This knowledge will then allow the proper notice to be given to acquire the necessary resources, which could include a workforce, in order for project commitments to be met. Take it from someone who has worked on recruitment strategies that have offered timelines ranging from adequate to “I need this person, this afternoon”. There is a world of difference on what priorities receive focus when the need is dire. While quality remains top priority, timelines are never disregarded entirely. A good rule of thumb is to provide the same notice to an externally sourced workforce development company that you would provide to your own HR department, in order for them to be successful in their recruitment.

Though there is a great deal to be harvested from a philosophy of better planning around workforce development, I recognize that for some industries it is not a simple oversight – but a physical impossibility. However, there are always options that can be slowly cultivated in order to introduce micro changes towards a system that certainly has a strong hand that is consistently left un-played. Ultimately, we can all do a better job of being more proactive, whether it’s in our personal lives or while scanning the horizons for business efficiencies. I find that slowly implementing proactive change into the personal life makes an easier transition into business. Just start!

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