Last year 89% of employees didn’t receive raises that would even cover inflation – The remaining 11% knew these secrets. This report contains 5 things you can do now to insure a salary increase and become more important to management
You may be tempted to think I am writing this article from a theoretical basis. I am not. I am writing from the experience of helping many people to get promotions and raises. I have participated in projects with clients around the world. In the first day of the project I tell people that if they will do this project correctly they will get a raise. Many times this was greeted with skepticism. Some would say, “I am at a level where I can’t get a raise” others would say “The company is strapped and any type of raise is unlikely” and many other similar statements. To date, I have about a 75% success rate of helping people to get a raise and/or promotion. The following is what I have learned.
In general – 70%* of all process improvement projects fail to produce the promised results. Analysts promise big savings, but deliver well below expectations. Yet in the midst of all the confusion other professionals have learned great secret “If you want a raise, create a clear undisputable path to save or make your company money.“
There are five critical principles to creating an “undisputable path to save or make your company money.”
- No Fuzzy Numbers
- First, show me how to save “real dollars.” As a business owner, I deplore seeing fuzzy numbers so don’t tell me we are going to save a 1/3 of a person in three departments. You and I both know that I will never see that savings. Show me how to cut company expenses that will show up on the bottom line. Show me how to reduce:
- Inventory
- Headcount
- Overtime
- Supplies
- Buildings
- Maintenance
- Etc
Simulation is excellent for this type of communication, because the interrelationships to achieve the saving are shown.
- First, show me how to save “real dollars.” As a business owner, I deplore seeing fuzzy numbers so don’t tell me we are going to save a 1/3 of a person in three departments. You and I both know that I will never see that savings. Show me how to cut company expenses that will show up on the bottom line. Show me how to reduce:
- Offer a Concrete Reward
- Second, show me how to make additional revenue. This can be done by showing how to increase production for things I can sell. The sales team of a GE medical equipment manufacturer said they could sell 50% more than the current production. The manufacturing department used ProcessModel to test which ideas would actually help increase throughput and which would not. There was no debate about what “might” work. Instead the model helped them to prove that the combination of 4 ideas (out of many suggestions) would achieve a 50% increase in production. This gave them a clear undisputable path to make more money. Their investment of less than $200k achieved millions of dollars of additional profit.In an expensive buffet restaurant, the mixture of table sizes was analyzed using simulation and optimization to increase profit by over a million dollars per year. In another sit down restaurant, the mixture of tables was analyzed to increase the number of customers serviced by 17%. In both cases there was a clear undisputable path to sell more in the same time period by the use of simulation.
A hospital with a level three trauma center had to turn away 17% ER of inbound ambulance emergencies. How does this happen? When an ambulance calls the hospital to alert the ER of the condition of arriving patients, the ER would state that it did not have capacity to handle the type of patient and would point the inbound ambulance to another, less capable facility. An integrated simulation model, which included the emergency room and critical care, showed the reasons why patients were being turned away. Doctors, nurses and analyst could observe the behavior that was causing lost revenue and a public relations nightmare for the hospital. Using the simulation they developed a “no cost” solution to solve the problem. Doctors were able to see why overloading elective surgeries on certain days reduced availability in the CCU. If the CCU was unavailable then accepting a trauma patient into the ER would be fruitless since the next step in the process was full. Simulation provided an undisputable path to achieve millions in additional revenue and an increase in public good will.
Increasing production has many sources of opportunity, yet the complexity of the problem often masks which combination of changes will produce real results. Simulation provides a clear undisputable path to realize the opportunities.
- Second, show me how to make additional revenue. This can be done by showing how to increase production for things I can sell. The sales team of a GE medical equipment manufacturer said they could sell 50% more than the current production. The manufacturing department used ProcessModel to test which ideas would actually help increase throughput and which would not. There was no debate about what “might” work. Instead the model helped them to prove that the combination of 4 ideas (out of many suggestions) would achieve a 50% increase in production. This gave them a clear undisputable path to make more money. Their investment of less than $200k achieved millions of dollars of additional profit.In an expensive buffet restaurant, the mixture of table sizes was analyzed using simulation and optimization to increase profit by over a million dollars per year. In another sit down restaurant, the mixture of tables was analyzed to increase the number of customers serviced by 17%. In both cases there was a clear undisputable path to sell more in the same time period by the use of simulation.
- Stand out
- Show me how to differentiate any element of my service that can be used to increase sales. For example: 3M was able to show how
to reduce the sales cycle from nine months to “less than thirty days” by taking control of the part of the process that was previously controlled by the customer. This change not only was a huge benefit to 3M, but also helped the customer to be able to make money with 3M’s products in a fraction of the time it previously took. That service improvement was valuable in the eyes of the customer. The customers saw this change as a substantial differentiating improvement and 3M sales increased.Simulation showed an undisputable path to communicate the changes needed to improve the service that would ultimately improve sales.
- Show me how to differentiate any element of my service that can be used to increase sales. For example: 3M was able to show how
- Write it Down
- My “manager memory” is short, so you had better have undisputable documentation of how things worked before the changes. I
find that very few people clearly remember how things really were before a major change. They may not even remember who was responsible for the change. Time makes all memories fuzzy. Don’t take the chance that your manager’s memory will become fuzzy about the way things worked, associated cost/savings and who provided the project results. If a model is built to clearly document the behavior of the current system and you validate the model’s accuracy against current systems, and then finalize the documentation by getting the model signed off by management, simulation then provides indisputable documentation of the way things were before the change. A “fuzzy” memory is always by a managers jogged own signature.
- My “manager memory” is short, so you had better have undisputable documentation of how things worked before the changes. I
- Have Options Ready
- Fifth, I recognize that as a manager I am sometimes blinded by the bright lights of scrutiny. This causes me to select projects that will justify previous decisions. Some of these projects may have little or no monetary benefit to the organization. In some situations you may have no choice but to participate in projects that offer little value. A good diversion technique to get out of those types of projects is to have a short list of projects that will save or make money for the organization. If you can point out the estimated value from project A is X while project B is X times 50, it will take a hardened manager to select the lesser because of ego.Having projects in your “pocket” takes a different mindset. This new mindset means that you are constantly looking at the interaction between people and systems to find opportunities. It means that you are looking for complex problems for which others can’t prove there is a solution. You are looking for problems that are masked by variability, complexity and interdependencies. Some of this “looking” will be a natural result of other projects, but often it will take extra time over and above your normal duties and pay.
As a rule of thumb, you are looking for projects that will provide a net improvement of greater than $500,000. Does that mean that I won’t touch a project that has less than a $500,000 net improvement? No, you might find a simple project that only takes a couple of days to complete, but the $500,000 will always get the attention of management.\
- Fifth, I recognize that as a manager I am sometimes blinded by the bright lights of scrutiny. This causes me to select projects that will justify previous decisions. Some of these projects may have little or no monetary benefit to the organization. In some situations you may have no choice but to participate in projects that offer little value. A good diversion technique to get out of those types of projects is to have a short list of projects that will save or make money for the organization. If you can point out the estimated value from project A is X while project B is X times 50, it will take a hardened manager to select the lesser because of ego.Having projects in your “pocket” takes a different mindset. This new mindset means that you are constantly looking at the interaction between people and systems to find opportunities. It means that you are looking for complex problems for which others can’t prove there is a solution. You are looking for problems that are masked by variability, complexity and interdependencies. Some of this “looking” will be a natural result of other projects, but often it will take extra time over and above your normal duties and pay.
Setting things up to get a raise may seem like a lengthy process. It doesn’t have to be. The process simply entails creating a clear, undisputable path to save or make money along with a method validating its difference from the status quo, combined with a project value that is high enough to get management’s attention. When those main elements are combined management will authorize the project to make the change a reality. When money hits the bottom line the value of the company increases. Increasing the value of the company means that you don’t have to compete for the same scarce dollars. You just opened up a new account, with new funds available for your raise.
Oh, by the way, congratulations on that upcoming raise… You don’t have to be able to create a simulation model. Model building services provide fast creation with unparalleled quality. Fill in a comment at our model building services page, and receive the information requested.
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