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Services for cooperative work with employees

Services for cooperative work with employees

This post is based on the joint coaching session of Pavel Timets and Pavel Kovsharov «How to improve an entertainment center? Modern technologies and instruments».

I have a story that I often tell to showcase the importance of automation of business processes. That was in the early 2000s, in the Leader entertainment center. I had been director of that fantastic place for 10 years; that was where I grew as a professional manager.

I well remember the day when we brought another couch to add to the two that were already standing by chief accountant’s office. Couches were needed to make it more convenient for employees to wait in the line. Our chief accountant was also our paymaster, who was coordinating expenses and allocating money. Our offices were close, so I was always wondering why there are so many employees waiting at his doorstep. They weren’t occupied with anything; they were just wasting their time!

So, I worked out a summary spreadsheet for our bosses where I counted how much time those employees spend there per month. Then I multiplied that amount by the hour rate of each employee… I ended up with a ridiculous sum of money. Since 2000s, the image of this line has served me as a reminder that we have to be ever efficient and progressive, and we mustn’t allow themselves to spend time solving problems that already have a solution.

The line problem has the simplest of solutions — you just need to set up a cooperative work site. These sites and portals should contain the company’s organization structure and employees’ accounts with their position in the company. Through these sites, managers coordinate bills and agreements, delegate tasks etc. As this piece of text is based on our joint coaching with Pavel Kovsharov, I’ll be covering the two systems that we use: Bitrix24 in my FUN24 and Motivity in his Zamania.

Pavel Timets and Pavel Kovsharov, authors and hosts of the coaching «How to improve an entertainment center? Modern technologies and instruments».

Pavel Timets and Pavel Kovsharov, authors and hosts of the coaching «How to improve an entertainment center? Modern technologies and instruments».

The Motivity corporate portal. Case of Pavel Kovsharov (chain of family friendly parks Zamania)

Zamania’s cooperative work site was built on the basis of the Motivity portal. The landing page of the site contains menu, calendar with schedule of trainings, latest news and so on. Employees can also submit a public question, which I will try real hard to personally respond to.

Here’s the list of Motivity functions we’re using:

  • Information portal and newsfeed. For big business, it is crucial that all employees exist in a shared information field. That’s where we post latest news.
  • We don’t use Bitrix24 alone to comprise a universal corporate knowledge database. Motivity has proved to be a more convenient platform for our franchisees. They can look up all the information they need, from the functional capacities of a waiter or entertainer to action sequence for launching a new park.
  • System of distance learning and performance review. Every employee has a personal account with learning programs, tests, rating and karma. For instance, waiters have to pass a test to prove their good knowledge of the menu.
  • Internal polls and voting.
  • Event calendar. Used for scheduling lectures and coaching sessions in our company training center. Employees are notified of those by means of announcements so they can sign up in advance.

The main disadvantage of Motivity is lack of a mobile application — there’s only an adapted web version.

Cooperative work site on the basis of Bitrix24. Case of Pavel Timets (FUN24 entertainment center)

Bitrix can be than a CRM system — it’s also a convenient task manager with a rich choice of instruments.

  • Automation of cooperative work. Bitrix24 allows to set up a digital archive where all corporate knowledge can be stored. There’s no more need to stack paper on the table or create hundreds of folders on the desktop — every bit of information is now on the cloud. Every employee has a personal account with regulated access privileges. An employee can log into the system and view or download all necessary materials.
  • Coordinating bills and agreements. No one has to bounce from one office to another with a mountain of paper. A bill can simply be fed into the program, after which it will be dealt with quickly and accordingly. No more lines at the chief accountant’s doorstep!
  • Task allocation, timing, SMART. Usually processes go like this: a chief gives a task, an employee doesn’t get it, they forget it, and it gets lots. In Bitrix24, we formulate the task, set the deadline, explain the purpose and appoint someone to be responsible for all that. No task stands a chance against this approach!
  • Obvious corporate structure and regulated access privileges. The company structure is presented in the form of a clear diagram. Every employee can see their position in this structure, and can directly contact any person. This facilitates communication. Bitrix24 allows to organize hierarchy so that top managers can easily see what their subordinates are up to. Employees from one department don’t have the access to other departments. There are 4 roles to every task: director, performer, observer, assistant. Depending on the role, each of those employees has different measure of access to editing and adding files, hence different measure of responsibility and demand.
  • The «Projects» instrument. This is where subordination doesn’t matter; any employee can be added to any project. For example, reconstruction of the cash register zone is a project that requires participation of designers, tech support and other departments. Those employees engage in communication, sharing files and allocating tasks without supervision of heads of departments. They have their deadlines displayed in a clear manner on the Gantt chart. This is not a hierarchy; this is a matrix, which is deemed to be efficient for project activities requiring joint efforts of multiple, cross-functional departments.
  • Cooperative calendar. This calendar can include not only company’s internal schedule but also events that take place in the entertainment center itself (birthday parties, office parties, bookings). The sales department can even organize and sell parties through this calendar.
  • Convenient messenger. Direct communication speeds up all business processes. Calls and video-calls can be made in Bitrix24.
  • Idea factory. Any employee can initiate a process and suggest their ideas for implementation. That employee basically explains their vision of the process and describes a social or economic outcome expected by them. For example, an economic outcome would be a certain amount of money saved within the span of a certain period. Then this task is structured and submitted to head of that employee’s department who makes the final decision. If the idea is approved, then funds are allocated, and its implementation starts. Our inventive employee is in for a bonus — a share of profit brought about by a stroke of genius.

Case of Dmitry Chursanov, training participant (the Land of Madagaskaria entertainment center)

Thanks to «idea factory», we developed and successfully implemented a rest zone for parents with PlayStation. One of our employees saw that parents get bored while waiting for their children to have enough fun. So, he suggested that we could reform the waiting zone: close it off from noise and set up a PlayStation. That totally worked! Fathers are bringing their children more often now, just to play some PlayStation while their kids are having fun nearby. Time flies when you’re playing a game. Parents are allowed free of charge, as they’re paying for their children, but now they also have an opportunity to spend some quality time in our park.

Case of Dmitry Chursanov, training participant (the Land of Madagaskaria entertainment center)

Dmitry Chursanov, training participant (the Land of Madagaskaria entertainment center)

It is crucial for any business to make use of a contemporary task manager and knowledge database. It doesn’t matter whether you choose Motivity, Bitrix24 or some other CRM system as long as it meets your requirements.

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