Managing a business is like putting together the pieces of a puzzle. There is no perfect way to do it, but the basic idea is to arrange your pieces in a logical manner and arrive at the correct solution. It requires your utmost patience and attentiveness for effective foreign consultancy management.
If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings, and put compensation as a carrier behind it, you almost don’t have to manage them. — Jack Welch
As much as most of us love efficiency, business management is not entirely a mechanical process. When you have to deal with human personalities and emotions, there is no one way of managing anything, let alone a business.
However, some ways are better than others, one of which is to employ people who sincerely understand their responsibilities, believe in self-management, and are able to adopt new technologies. Here are six major pieces of the puzzle you should consider, to improve your foreign consultancy:
Learn to walk the talk
Managing anything and everything begins with self-management, even for a foreign consultancy. As consulting firms, you need to set good examples that inspire your co-workers. The values you choose to instill in your team must reflect in you as well.
If you don’t walk the talk, your employees will not take their work seriously and it will hamper the foreign consultancy business. Maintaining double standards is a sure sign of imminent failure. Consider doing the following to improve your foreign consultancy:
- Make decisions based on what is good for the business and company objectives.
- Always ask your staff how you can help or improve their situation.
- Be accountable for everything that happens in your agency and find ways to create a positive impact.
- Be the first to own up to your mistakes and make a pledge to learn from it.
Show genuine gratitude and empathy
The power of gratitude is undeniable. Sometimes people might work in a company where the salary or the job is mediocre, but they stay back due to the manager. The best managers have one thing in common, and that is gratitude!
Saying, ‘well done’, ‘good job’ or ‘thank you” to an employee is a powerful motivator. Publicly acknowledging the contributions of your employees is even better! So don’t hesitate to praise your team, wherever possible. Try these communication tips for your foreign study consultancy:
- We could not have done this without you.
- You are doing a great job!
- I have an important project for you.
- I need your help.
- Thank you!
Retain your best employees
Every year, thousands of companies around the world lose their most talented employees to competitors. The cost of recruitment is high. So how can you, the foreign consultancy, make them stay? Here are some tips to retain your top talent (Forbes):
- Incentivize them competitively: This is the most common and basic issue you can resolve. Look at the salary structure prevalent in the market and the rate your competitors are offering for the same positions.
- Be clear about your agency vision: A haphazard company vision creates a lack of transparency and engagement within the team. Your agency employees should feel part of the company and that they are making a difference.
- Provide opportunities to learn and grow: Set standards in your agency for achievements and reward employees accordingly. Occasionally, enroll them in training programs or send them to appropriate seminars and workshops.
Handle toxic employees immediately
It is very difficult for companies to move forward without handling their toxic or under-performing employees first. Toxic can also mean they have certain grievances about the work environment. Here are some tips to handle them in your foreign consultancy:
- Schedule meetings with each one of them and identify the source of their discontent. It is essential to know whether the discontent is personal or professional. Ask honest, open and direct questions.
- Use the information you gather to develop a plan of action.
- If the issue is personal, provide them with helpful advice. If it is professional, evaluate and find ways to resolve it.
- Follow up with them regularly until the issues have been completely resolved.
- Eventually, if it does not work out, the last option is to let them go.
Be open to new technologies for business management
Business automation is not a luxury anymore, but a necessity! Automating monotonous tasks will save your foreign consultancy employees precious time and enhance their efficiency. Agency management software like Agentcis can help improve your business management dramatically.
Among other, they offer exclusive features like:
- Multiple Workflows: This special feature can create and modify workflows simultaneously. You can set stages of applications, offer letters, visas, and so on. Whether you are a migration or education agency, it works both ways.
- Task Sharing: Task Management becomes more efficient when tasks are easily shareable among the team. Moreover, there is no loss of information and employees have the flexibility to work from anywhere.
- Tracking Progress: At each stage of your client process, you can send emails, set due dates, add notes, post comments, and upload documents. Regardless of the size of your client database, the system will always provide accurate information on the client’s status.
- Prompt Invoicing: With software like these, your employees do not need to waste hours making invoices manually. The automatic process lets you send and receive invoices, as per your agency business schedule.
Create a culture of open and clear communication
One of the best ways to improve your foreign consultancy is to create a good agency culture, promote feedback, ideas, and communication between employees and departments. Here are some reasons why this is important:
- Your employees may be able to spot a process in your foreign consultancy that can become more efficient.
- Every business needs new ideas to grow further.
- Good management requires clarity in communication.
- It helps build trust, transparency, and loyalty.
- It helps you to understand when to start or stop a process, so that your employees are at their most productive, and not overburdened by work.
Good management of a foreign consultancy requires the combination of efficiency and skills. Hire the right people, train them well, give them adequate responsibilities, automate your processes wherever possible, communicate clearly, and success will follow suit!
