Who is more important to your business, your customers, or your vendors? So many companies say the customer is the most important part of their business. If they didn’t have customers, they wouldn’t succeed, so they spent countless hours and dollars appeasing the customer. They offer customer appreciation days, guaranteed deliveries, special discounts because the customer asked, and the list goes on. “The Customer is Always Right”. I think we all know by now that is not tr

Summer might have ended for students and parents across the country but the sweltering heat still lingers. The Dog Days of Summer are officially here - that time of the year when the mercury rises and the days tauntingly creep by. In ancient Greek times, the Dog Days were ushered in when the brightest star, Sirius, and its accompanying constellation, Canis Major, (Greater Dog) was highest in the sky. It was a time of year that brought extremes of drought, sudden thunderstorms

I know what you are thinking....that image is NOT me...You are probably right, it isn't. Remove the image of a woman and put yourself in her place. Does this feel like you? Are you wearing many hats and trying to juggle them all? For me I constantly am struggling with the endless to-do lists, appointments, projects, home, kids, marriage, life, and lastly myself. Today is all about "go-go-go." I recently read this article about the disease that is "being busy." As I read it

How much did that guy pick?!? Is he pulling his weight? Is he making me money? Is employee performance management about tracking productivity, or about making your employees more productive? I think I can hear some of you saying, these are the same thing. I disagree, and here’s why. Employee productivity is a metric. It is a measure of how many widgets did Sally pick. It is a blind metric, in that it doesn’t care how many interruptions she had, or if she had to stop and he

Too often, sacrifices in workplace safety and health are made in the name of cost-savings or misplaced assurance that “an incident will never happen here.” Safety professionals offer recommendations that fall on deaf ears, are met with blank stares, or are brushed off as unimportant, extraneous matters. So forget about best practices, employer responsibility, or even laws and regulations that stipulate safety requirements. Let’s talk money. Rather than categorize safety inves

Do you follow a field of dreams mentality, “If you stock it they will come”? Hoping that by just having the inventory available someone will buy it? Or do you try a minimalist approach, stock the bare necessities, and everything else is special order? We are continually challenged to provide better customer service, while at the same time reducing costs. When talking about inventory, improving customer service usually means improving order fill rates and on time deliveries.

Time Management (or lack there of) is something that everyone struggles with. In our culture today people feel a sense of accomplishment when they list off all the tasks that they have to do in single day. Seemingly that the more stress you have the more successful you are. Being busy has become the new normal for everyday and everyone. What ends up happening is that no matter the task there is a reason: I couldn't get "this" done because I am so busy doing "that." The excuse

Our most valuable assets, or our biggest cost? How many times have you picked up a journal to read a CEO talking about why their company is as successful as it is. Nine out of ten times the CEO will state the secret to success as being the employees. We would love to ask those same CEOs about the companies employee turnover rate. It is surprising how many companies don’t know the answer to that question. If employees are the most valuable asset, why are you not tracking tur

A few things about me. 1. I am married to Andy Weith- founder of ASW Global Consulting 2. I have been an ER and Trauma Nurse since 2006 3. Our family of four used to all travel together (until our oldest was in kindergarten) 250+ days a year 4. I work for ASW Global Consulting and also continue to work as a nurse 5. Andy and I just had our third baby: Mae You might be asking yourself "Why is this person telling us these things?" The five facts above are examples of embraci

In the world of big data we live in today, there is an overwhelming amount of “things” that can be measured which can drive continuous improvement throughout an organization. Sifting through the options of what should be measured can be a daunting task. Are you measuring just to measure or is there actionable data obtained? What if you could have a composite KPI that enables a performance measurement that spans across functional silos in your organization while producing act