My Comfort Zone

I found this quotes in pravsworld.com, and I think it is very precise for me. This quote tells exactly how I felt. I want to take this quote as my resignation letter.

“I used to have a comfort zone where I knew I wouldn’t fail.
The same four walls and busywork were really more like jail.
I longed so much to do the things I’d never done before,
But stayed inside my comfort zone and paced the same old floor.

I said it didn’t matter that I wasn’t doing much.
I said I didn’t care for things like commission checks and such.
I claimed to be so busy with the things inside the zone,
But deep inside I longed for something special of my own.

I couldn’t let my life go by just watching others win.
I held my breath; I stepped outside and let the change begin.
I took a step and with new strength I’d never felt before,
I kissed my comfort zone goodbye and closed and locked the door.

If you’re in a comfort zone, afraid to venture out,
Remember that all winners were at one time filled with doubt.
A step or two and words of praise can make your dreams come true.
Reach for your future with a smile; success is there for you!”

Working in my company right now is like being in the comfort zone. I know my work very well and the people I work with are very predictable. I don’t say that work here is not challenging, I learn a lot last year. But ever since this company strategy is changing from expand the business portfolio to only maintain it, I feel that my learning curve is mature, and it’s time to move on.

Knowledge Management Portal

Employee turn over rate in my company this year is nearly 25%, the usual turn over is 10%. The HR department is starting to feel overwhelm to recruit new candidates. [Poor ‘wally’ ;p]

As a ‘CEO Prompter’ like everybody said, I don’t have the accurate analysis of why this thing happen. Many factors have caused it; hijack from our competitor and not satisfied with the leadership maybe are the major reasons with the leave.

New employee needs to be taught about how this company works. They must learn the operating procedure, monthly performance report, department policies, job descriptions and many thing else.

Sometimes the transfer knowledge from the former employee is not completed. So, this new employee has to learn from the start. They must even build again some simple analysis or report template because they don’t know that it had been done before.

We suggest our CEOs to build a knowledge management portal in the intranet. So everyone from all over the branches can have an online learning portal about the procedure, policies, job descriptions, and even can download some work templates.

The idea of this portal is simple. We just design a user friendly intranet where user can browse everything they want to know. We put all the documents, templates, and procedures in the portal, so authorized user can download it. There will be no hassle, no repetitive work, and new employee can make a productive work immediately.

The follow-up idea for this KM portal is to make a ‘dashboard’ for everyone so they know the company performance and have a broad view outside their department.

Of course there is some concern about data security. What happen if the employee got hijack by our competitor and they brought all this knowledge?

But my answer is this; the competitor can have all the documents, policies, operating procedures, and even the employee; but in the service business ‘the brand image’, the work culture, and the system can’t be easily copied.

If we consider the risk and benefit, like my favorite CEO one said, “I worried more about calculating the wrong cost structure because our sales lack of knowledge, compare to that knowledge steal by our competitor”. Organization and its knowledge are always changing and evolving, so today solution is a tomorrow problem. Why we must worry?