Hi ,
Welcome to our first newsletter of 2011 – sharing with you  best practices, improvement tools, and events. Non-members of the BPIR can read the newsletter but will be unable to access some of the links.  

Management Brief: Workplace Wellness
Healthy and happy employees are sick less often; they have more energy and tend to be more engaged at work. For this reason, creating a culture of good health is a wise organisational strategy. Meaningful wellness programmes are an effective way of supporting employees to build and maintain healthy lifestyles. Increasingly, organizations report positive returns on investment for their wellness
programmes........ read more..

Read other management briefs

Looking forward to a successful 2011!

January is a great time to set goals for the year ahead. Like some of you my personal goal is to get super-fit (well fit in the first instance!). This seems to be harder to achieve each year with my creaking bones, sporting injuries and the travel I need to do (I am making excuses already!). My business goal is to develop a super-fit BPIR.com. This too presents many challenges but perhaps these are easier to address than personal fitness! We already have some super projects lined up such as a project to add benchmarks through working with one of our key partners – SPRING Singapore. The idea is to have our members record generic benchmarks related to business excellence criteria. We are also exploring the potential of running on-line surveys in specific areas with one of our partners.

If you have ideas on how you would like BPIR to develop in 2011 please let me know. Maybe you can help us to achieve our goals through working with us, contributing blogs or articles, or helping to moderate a discussion forum… all ideas and offers of help are welcome! Maybe we can help you too? I wish you all a very successful 2011. – Dr Robin Mann, Co-Founder BPIR.com Limited, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . 

Spotlight on Events

• Something for everyone – Three conferences rolled into one!!! – Hamdan Bin Mohammed e-University, Dubai, continues its pioneering work – from e-Education to an unparalleled focus on educating learners in quality management. Their innovation this time is to roll three conferences into one.  They will host the 5th Quality Conference in the Middle East, 4th Conference on e-Learning Excellence in the Middle East, and 3rd e-Health Conference in the Middle East from January 31st to 3 February.
• The EOQ clock starts ticking – Submit your papers now! –The EOQ and its National Representative organization from Hungary, HNC-EOQ, are inviting you to participate in the 55th EOQ Congress organized in Budapest, Hungary, June 21-23, 2011 . The theme is "Navigating Global Quality in a New Era". The deadline for submission of abstracts is November 30, 2010.
• There is no recession in Singapore just unrivalled GDP growth at 18%. Singapore is No.1 in the world for a number of national indices including “Customer service in the public service” and “Ease of doing business”. One reason for this is the strong focus on business excellence and benchmarking in the public and private sector. This year four public sector organisations were business excellence award winners. Learn more about what makes successful organizations in Singapore at the Award Winners Conference, 29-30 March or attend one of COER’s TRADE Best Practice Benchmarking training sessions , 28 Feb-1 March, Singapore, designed to help organisations become better than the best.   

Spotlight on Self-Assessment
Have you used any of our self-assessment tools lately? We have over 50 to assess all aspects of your organisation from how your organisation develops its strategy to how it serves its customers. Here are three typical examples:
 

• Customer Complaints Resolution – Can  you improve how you manage and resolve complaints?.... read more (go to category 4)
• Supply Chain Management – Can how you manage your supply chain be improved?…. read more (go to category 6)
• Presentations – Make sure your presentations in 2011 are successful ... read more (go to category 7)

Featured publications
Did you know BPIR provides full access to over 600 excellent business publications providing, in total, over 1,000,000 articles and reports? Here are a few of the titles from the "Banking and Finance" category (one of 23 categories): 

Members read the latest issues - non members see available titles

Best Practice Case Studies
Read one of our best practice case studies:

Health and safety Programmes - teens monitored closely  
Saint Louis Zoo recruited seasonal employees, many in their teens, to supplement regular staff - some 200 teens worked in gift shops, food and guest services, and as grounds crews. Workplace safety began when potential employees were screened for drug use and criminal records. Safety training was paramount with all workers receiving basic safety training, including use of personal protective equipment, how to put out fires, first aid and CPR. A full-day orientation process was used to train both teens and adult workers in groups of 15 to 20. Experienced training managers targeted every kind of learning style and all age groups in order to keep them engaged. Teens also received on-the-job training for specific tasks and were then monitored very closely to ensure that they worked only on tasks permitted by law. read more

Workplace wellness - fun events encourage participation  
Astro Apparel developed a programme designed to motivate its employees to become fit and to promote wellness. The programme was designed to be fun and to encourage maximum participation by the workforce. Each year the more popular activites were retained and new ones were introduced. Example activities included a holding `Biggest Loser` competition, providing pedometers and asking employees to log their steps each day for six weeks, CPR classes, and team events associated with raising funds for charities. A recently introduces popular event called `Stress-less Bingo` was lots of fun and rewarded employees for appropriate behaviour. It was very satisfying for Astro when as a result of its efforts, the organisation won a Blue Cross Healthiest Workplace Award for small businesses. read more

Innovation strategy uses ideas from customers  
When it developed its twin-engine B-777 aircraft Boeing, a US based aerospace company took an innovative step by interacting with customers ahead of the design phase. The company created a process called `working together teams` in which customers, designers, and suppliers worked together. Boeing invited executives from leading airlines to provide ideas on the kind of futuristic aircraft they envisaged, gained new insights from potential customers and integrated the responses to multiple needs, eliminating the need for separate customization exercises after production. By capturing customer requirements before product realization, Boeing created one of the best selling aircraft in its class. read more

Diversity Management training gets high attendance rates  
Prior to 2007 diversity training was poorly attended at Nationwide Children`s Hospital, a US healthcare provider - attendance of physicians was less than 5%. A team was formed from those areas of the hospital interested in facilitating communication between physicians and patients. Initial one-hour sessions on patient care were focused on different ethnic groups and emphasised universal principles of communication. Sessions included Somali Focus, Latino Focus, and Bridges Out of Poverty. Division leaders were held accountable for attendance of their staff and hundreds of physicians began attending. Sessions were offered via National’s online learning system and presentations were also made available via teleconferences to satellite sites. In all over 70% of physicians attended and evaluations received rated the presentations good to excellent. read more

Remember
To regularly check out the bpir.com for benchmarks, best practices and business excellence.  We know you will find valuable knowledge and we always welcome your feedback, so if you have time, please email any comments about our services to feedback@BPIR.com .

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