Team Work in Business

As clichéd the statement - 'united we stand, divided we fall' may be, it is the secret behind every success story. The importance of teamwork gets doubly highlighted in the realm of businesses. Delving deeper into the issue of teamwork we see that irrespective of the size of a particular business venture, teamwork among the partners, staff or employees, as may be the case, is of immense importance. Even if it is a small scale business with a modest start up, constructing professional relationships and working together as a team, goes a long way in achieving dynamism and success.

A one man army entrepreneurship is sure to betray a business at some point or the other. Most successful businesses get help and support both from those within and outside the peripheries of the venture. The owner of a business venture must highlight the importance of teamwork by blending it with the company's culture and business methods. Effective networking and working together with other business leaders is a fool proof method of successfully promoting a small scale enterprise.

Incorporation of Teamwork in your Business:

Teamwork involves the combined efforts of two or more people contributing different skills but sharing the same view point and working towards common aims and goals. Employees of the business must be made aware of the goals set for the enterprise and must work in such a way that catapults the business closer towards meeting these aims and targets. Mutually beneficial interactions and networking with other small business owners can be the perfect antidote to a future of long term struggle.

It is very crucial to incorporate and blend teamwork into one's business culture and a work method statement. Teamwork incorporates mutual respect for each other's opinions and capabilities, injects a sense of ownership and thus accountability within the employees and allows for honest communication and discussion about the issues dealt by the company.

Importance of Teamwork in the Marketing World:

One mutually beneficial activity that has gone completely unnoticed over the years is the concept of co-marketing. Co-marketing opens up numerous marketing opportunities making it a highly beneficial game plan. Pulling it off however requires high creative and organizational skills, but be rest assured that once it hits the mark, your business will well be on its way to the `seat of success'. Co-marketing involves sharing of customers by tagging up with other businesses that target the same market, in a complimentary manner though instead of a substitutable manner. This establishes a strong referral and mutually beneficial relationship between two ventures.

Teamwork thus seems to be the key ingredient in the recipe of a successful enterprise, be it small or large. Mutually beneficial activities like networking and co-marketing are what you should include in your game plan, if you want your business to be catapulted to success!

Project Management Plan Template: Key to Success

A good project management plan template holds the key to any project's success. Planning is the primary phase of project management and it should not be neglected. Poorly planned projects end up leaving staff members and investors very frustrated. A project plan is a tool that clearly presents the processes and procedures of planning. This tool guides the project's progress through completion. The plan will serve as the foundation for the project team and it will show the step-by-step process for project completion.

The project team should work together to create a detailed plan. There are standard formats of project plans; the team can use these formats to base their plan creation. They will just have to modify their formats according to the type of their project and other priorities. In creating a plan, the team should have vigorous negotiations, most especially the decision makers. The decision makers are the ones who will finally decide on what are the things that should be prioritized first, the strategies, resources, and budget to be used, as well as the project schedule.

Project managers are among these decision makers. They should be careful in making decisions because the project plan will serve as the basis of any activities or serve as safe work method statements that need to be implemented during planning implementation and completion. If ever there are wrong decisions made in the planning phase, the result can be seen after the implementation of the decision, as a result it would be difficult for the team to prevent errors in the project's progress.

With the use of a detailed project plan, the overall activities can be tracked down to see if there are possible changes to be made during the creation phase. The team could also anticipate the outcome of the activity by merely looking on its structured plan. If the plan is smooth flowing, and the details were arranged properly in accordance with the project schedule, greater chances that the project will be completed successfully. The procedures of the project creation, project schedule, and other aspects of the project should be documented in the plan. After the creation of the project management plan, project managers should make sure that the plan is to be followed by the team. The activities should be based on the plan, and the extent for a certain activity should be followed in order to avoid overtime. Indeed, project plan truly holds the key to attain project completion on time, with successful outcome.

Environmental Management Plan System History

An Environmental Management System (EMS) is formed in order to make it possible for a company, organization, or government reduces the amount of impact that they have on the environment. The term can be restricted only to the operation of buildings, or it can include the life cycle of products as well. As an example, if you were to own five different buildings that are located in five different places, you would have a total of five environmental management systems.

In order to simplify the process, typically you would want a master document to be created that would review all of these systems together in concert with one another so that a picture of the entire operation could be formulated. As another example, if there were five different buildings that could all be found in the same location, they could all be included as a single Environmental Management System.

When implementing an Environmental Management Plan System, it needs to be reviewed periodically so that it can be adjusted and improved with time. This means that the implementation of an EMS has a cyclic nature to it. The procedure starts with identifying what operations exist and how they affect the environment, deciding what can be done about it. The second step is when these changes are put into practice. The third step is to see how effective the changes were. The fourth step is to determine further changes that need to be made. Before formal standards were laid down, EMS was still implemented by several companies in a less formal way. These procedures were followed in order to have compliance with many separate, individual regulations instead of combining them together into one system. These systems would be reviewed any time that there was some question as to whether or not compliance was being followed, or if the regulations changed.

The ISO 14000 series offers a guide to the proper implementation of EMS. ISO 14001 lays down a series of 17 basic requirements that are required in order to be compliant with the voluntary organization's standards:

• The company is required to have an environmental management plan policy that is clearly stated and followed.
• Products, services, and activities must be analyzed in order to determine the impact that they have on the environment.
• Obviously, the company is required to meet the legal requirements and regulations relevant to the area or areas in which it operates.
• A set of environmental goals needs to be laid down. A plan for how to reach those goals must also be put in place.
• Environmental roles and responsibilities are then defined by the organization.
• Steps need to be taken in order to ensure that the workforce is well aware of the guidelines put in place so that they can meet their responsibilities.
• A process of communication must be set up in order to discuss environmental issues both inside and outside of the organization.
• The organization is required to document information related to the EMS procedure.
• Documents regarding procedures and other elements of EMS must be effectively managed.
• The operation of the EMS must be effectively planned and managed. This includes the policy, objectives, goals, and so forth.
• The organization must also develop plans in order to effectively prevent and respond to emergency situations that could result in negative environmental impacts.
• Key activities need to be measured and monitored regularly.
• Compliance must be regularly evaluated
• Problems must be identified, corrected, and prevented from happening again.
• Records of EMS performance must be kept.
• The EMS must be audited on a regular basis.
• Management must periodically review the EMS.

Employees on Safe Work Methods

A Safe Work Method Statement or SWMS is a document that contains strictly implemented standards concerning how certain tasks can be performed safely and effectively. This document is intended for tasks or activities that are identified as "high-risk" or dangerous. Safe Work Method Statements explains in detail how hazards in the workplace should be managed or controlled. Companies and business owners are encouraged to prepare a Method Statement before allowing their employees carry out high risk tasks.

Work Method Statement is often prepared right after conducting a Job Safety Analysis or JSA. The JSA is responsible for checking the components of every task in the company and identifying the possible hazards and control measures for each part of the task. Besides the actual job or activity, a JSA also inspects the individuals who are assigned to perform the task. The JSA observes how the person performs the tasks that are assigned to him/her. The JSA notes all possible hazards and also put the reasonable risk control measures in place to address any mistakes in the operations. After completing all these, a full risk assessment is necessary.

The information gathered from the JSA will be used to develop your company's Safe Work Method Statement or SWMS. It is necessary to create a Method Statement that employees must abide by before performing any task. Once all safe work methods are stated and outlined in the Method Statement it is automatically understood that everyone in the company-employers and employees-understand the dangers and risks involved before performing a particular task.

You need to include the following details when creating a Safe Work Method Statement:

• The name of the person assigned to the task, his or her qualifications and trainings that persons assigned to a task should be provided with.

• List of equipment that is needed to complete the task. This also identifies the inspections that have been performed or will be performed in the workplace.

• Description of every task that is to be performed. The potential hazards that is associated to a particular phase of the task. 

The Safe Work Method Statements or SWMS is a legal document which companies and employees should regard highly since it can promote safety in the workplace and smooth flow of business operations. It is very important for businesses to be prepared with a safety management system before they allow their employees carry out high-risk tasks. This will reduce the number of accidents in the workplace and also protect a business from legal problems in the future. A Safe Work Method Statement or SWMS should be prepared using plain English. It should be short and concise so that even employees with low literacy levels can understand and remember what was indicated in the document.

Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems for Organizations

Occupational Health and Safety management is a mixture of practices and union. The demands on OHS management plan systems vary a lot depending on industry and organizational roles, but the basic best practices are much the same. Interestingly, some of the best new modern OHS management systems are the fully statutorily compliant, employer managed self insurance systems.

These are extremely well structured management programs, with full financial and operational management conducted in-house. These systems are extremely productive, containing risk, ensuring a good workplace environment and improving productivity. These programs also provide built in mechanisms for compliance with industry regulations, which is a particularly valuable business operational function.

An overview

OHS safety management requires strategic planning and systematic review of organizational practices for optimal performance.

Elements of planning include:

• Scale and range of organizational operations
• Statutory requirements
• Risk profiling of business functions and operations
• Assessment of sickness and accidents in the workplace
• Management resources
• Compliance with the requirements of the regulator regarding OHS and risk management obligations (Mandatory in self-insurance licensing)

This is really a form of business planning. In practice OHS management can be seen in context with the organizational business plan, in directly relationship to all areas of workplace operations.

Tailoring your OHS management system to your business.

In many industries, the Occupational Health and Safety issues are complex. Risk management may involve very large amounts of capital and large numbers of different types of operation. OHS management plan systems in these multifaceted business environments require a very strong level of consistency from the policy stage to implementation in the workplace.

The Occupational Health and Safety management system must cover:

• Occupational health and safety policies.
• Best practice OHS operational methods.
• Creation of practices for documentation of procedures.
• Location based OHS criteria for specific needs.
• Reporting methodologies to ensure good quality, verifiable information for each stage of OHS procedures
• Databases and records required for OHS-related information.

Many businesses engage expert risk management consultants to create and implement their OHS management systems. This ensures best practice and currency of OHS procedures and statutory compliance. Many consultants also provide OHS management services. These services include monitoring of the OHS systems and are an invaluable asset for businesses which don't have the management resources to conduct these operations themselves.

Getting your OHS management routines in place

Implementation of Occupational Health and Safety management systems is conducted using a managed prioritization approach. Typically, this will be a phased, coordinated process mapped out in advance in consultation with business management.

The most important elements in implementation are training and familiarity with the OHS procedures and safety system requirements. With statutorily affected types of business operation, the training is structured to link OHS systems and operational procedures. In some cases this will require new operational procedures, or changes to existing operations. OHS management systems provide a valuable resource for businesses. They promote good work practices, a safety-conscious work environmental management plan, and routinely increase productivity.