Free Ebook Download - PINOY'S GUIDE TO MANAGING YOUR FINANCES

PINOY’S GUIDE TO MANAGING FINANCES © 2007

Ateneo - Economic Policy Reform and Advocacy

(EPRA) Project

A. Getting the Basics Right

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1. Where does your money go?

2. What is ‘consumption’?

3. What is ‘protection?

4. What are ‘savings and investments’?

5. What are taxes?

6. How important are ‘protection’ and ‘savings and

investments’ relative to ‘consumption’ expenses?

7. If your employer is already doing your savings and

protection, why should you do more?

8. How do you save and protect yourself and your

family?

B. Financial Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

9. What are family goals and how do you set them?

10. How do you set a time frame for each goal?

11. How will each family member contribute to the

achievement of the family goals?

12. What is your complete family budget?

13. After accomplishing the family budget, what is left

for you to save?

C. Letting Your Money Grow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

14. What do you do with the money left over after

meeting your family goals?

15. What instruments can you invest in directly?

16. What should you consider when making an

investment?

17. How do you balance safety, liquidity and return?

18. When dealing with a bank, how do you protect your

self from losing your investments?

19. What about investing your money in your own

business?

Appendix A : Insurance Products and Pension Plans

Appendix B : Family Budget Worksheets

Appendix C : Pre-Need Plans

Appendix D : Types of Risk

Appendix E : Government Securities

Appendix F : Types of Mutual Funds

Dealing With Customer Complaints

Whether you're selling products or services, sooner or later, an angry customer will come in to file a complaint about your "substandard" product or "lousy" service. What do you do?

If it's a product, make sure that the customer has brought in the defective product with him. If not, have a service representative inspect the product at the customer's residence. (Now I'm sure a lot of you are asking, do you charge the customer for your serviceman's transportation expenses from your office to the customer's residence? I hope you have enough good sense NOT to charge your customer for that kind of expense.) Ask the customer what is wrong with the product and LISTEN to what he is saying. Then ask permission to check the product IN HIS PRESENCE. If the item needs to be brought back to the office for repair or replacement, ask him to fill-out a consent form that doubles as a job order/replacement form. Once you have fixed the item or has the replacement unit ready, call your customer and inform him that you will be delivering the product to his residence. Make sure that you demonstrate that the product is working perfectly well in his presence and ask him to try it out while you are still there. Before leaving, make sure that the customer signs a release form stating that you have already dealt with his complaint and that he is satisfied with your response or action. A small reminder here: Make sure that you address the complaint within a specific period of time, say, two weeks. Make sure that the customer knows that you need two weeks to address or fix his problem. And make sure that you finish addressing his problem in LESS than two weeks.

For service businesses, customer complaints vary from poor service, plain rudeness or dishonesty of certain employees. You ask the customer what is wrong, you write down the complaint. If it's poor service, obviously you have to ask your employees to do it right and make it right. If it's rudeness, you ask your employee to apologize to the customer in your presence, and refer the matter to the HRD for proper disciplinary action. If it's dishonesty, refer the matter to the HRD so that they can initiate a proper investigation on the employee's alleged dishonesty and initiate termination proceedings if necessary. In this case, you advise the customer of the due process involved and promise the customer that he will be informed in writing of the outcome of the investigation and proceedings which was caused by his complaint.

Dealing properly with a customer's complaint can help build your company's reputation in after sales support. This is a key consideration in the mind of any customer: the knowledge that if something goes wrong with the item or service purchased, the company is honorable enough to correct the error at a reasonable time and at no additional cost to the customer.

Asking The Boss For A Raise?

With the higher cost of living, more employees are thinking of asking for a pay raise from the boss. But the problem is, everytime an employee asks for a raise, his approach is fairly simple and self-serving: "Boss, I need to talk to you... I really need a raise... I can't make ends meet anymore with what you are paying me... I have to ask you or find another job." The problem is with that kind of an approach, you'd probably get the boot instead of the thumbs up that you need. So what do you do?

First, take stock of what you have been bringing into the company. Have you been selling more? Have you been producing more? Have you been helping the company save on costs? Have you been assisting the company get more business? You have to evaluate on your own whether or not you are indeed an asset to the company or whether you have become a baggage to the company. Knowing where you are coming from helps you assess your worth in monetary terms to the company.

Next, check what other companies are paying for the kind of work that you do. This gives you an idea whether or not your boss is paying you what is considered "industry standard". If he is paying you what everyone else in the industry is paying, then most likely, a straight approach to asking for a raise won't work. You need a different strategy, which we'll go to in a little while. Checking with other companies will also give you an idea as to whether there are job vacancies you can fill in case you get the boot. This will give you a sense of confidence knowing that if your boss turns your request down and at the same time gives you the boot, you have somewhere to go.

Now, back to the strategy I was referring to. Your When you ask the boss for a raise, you remind him of how loyal you have been to your company, as well as all of the good things you have done for your company. You tell the boss that you want to stay in the company but money has been tight lately and you need a pay raise. You offer the boss a way to pay this raise to you by offering to take on additional responsibility or work for the additional pay. Most of the time, the boss will see that there is wisdom in keeping you and kicking out some useless employee whose job and responsibilities you can take over from. Most likely by kicking out the other employee and giving you a raise will result in the boss saving on labor costs.

My last piece of advice, just make sure that you ask for the raise first before anyone else of value to the company approaches the boss with the same offer. You might be the "useless" employee he is willing to sacrifice to save on labor costs.

Remind the boss that you are an

Asset to the company and that you can further increase the company's

Income and find ways to

Shrink the company's

Expenses

That is how to ask for a raise.

What Proper Supervision Means - The T.I.E. Solution

After the usual orientation conducted by the HRD people and the usual introductions to the department manager, he is automatically dumped to the department supervisor for on-the-job training. The supervisor is lucky if the company has its own training manual from which he can teach the new employee the rudiments of his job, but unfortunately, that is not always the case.

So, what steps does the supervisor take to break in the new employee? He only needs his T.I.E.

T- Train

Teaching is different from training in the sense that in teaching, the employee is passive and his concentration is on hearing what is being said by the supervisor, his active participation limited to jotting down "reminders" in his notebook as to what is being said. Training on the other hand requires the active participation of the new employee as he has to do whatever the supervisor is demonstrating to him in what is usually called a return demonstration. In training, the supervisor mentions certain standards by which the new employee's work will be checked to make sure that standards are being met. So standards are communicated and demonstrated for the new employee to follow and emulate.

I- Inspect

Supervisors are required to check the output of their subordinates at a certain interval. Usually, checking is done at the beginning and at the end of the shift. However, with regards to a new employee, it is best to check with him in between these times to verify his progress on the job. While it is irritating to find supervisors practically looking over the shoulder of the new employee almost all day long, the supervisor must communicate to the new employee that it is only natural for the supervisor to look over his shoulder from time to time and to remind him that if he needs any additional information or help understanding his work, then the supervisor is just a stone's throw away from him.

E- Evaluate

At the beginning of "break-in" training, the supervisor communicated certain work or output standards required of the new employee. Evaluation is a tool that will help the supervisor quantify the output or results of the new employee's work and measure it against set standards. Evaluation requires that the supervisor communicates to the new employee whether his work can be considered meeting the company's standard or not so that both can take immediate measures to correct any deficiency.

A Reminder to the Supervisor

We all know that a tie is neither worn too tight or too loose and the same goes in dealing with new employees. The supervisor doesn't want to be seen to be too strict that he seems to be unapproachable nor too friendly with his subordinates to the point of losing their respect as their leader. When we look at a tie, it is basically a strip of cloth with two ends. One end represents top management and the other end represents subordinate employees. The supervisor is neither a manager or a subordinate employee, thus, he should see himself as the knot in between tying both management and subordinate employees together. A good supervisor is one who can tie management interests with subordinate employees interest together.

What To Do With Problem Employees:The 3-D Solution

Problem employees. We all have them. You want to fire them and honestly, you can't quite stand their presence in your company any longer. What do you do? You document, discipline and dismiss the employee: in that order.

When we say "document", you put in writing whatever violation the employee has committed and have the employee submit his written explanation to present his side of the story. (A little caution here --- before you write any violation on paper, make sure that you have adequately communicated to him verbally and if possible, have him receive a copy of the employee handbook or manual where a list of violations and their penalties are written down. This is to make sure that he "willingly" committed the violation and not because he was "ignorant" of company regulations.)

With the violation charge sheet and the employee's explanation on hand, you can now move to "discipline" the employee. In the Philippines, you can only dismiss or terminate the employee on the third violation. So, if it's the first violation, you have the option to give the employee a verbal or written reprimand or a light suspension of 3-5 days, depending on what is stipulated in the employee handbook for that particular violation.

Suppose that your employee lives up to his image of being a "problem" employee and commits the same violation for the second time, you have to go through the same routine of serving a violation notice to your employee and requiring him again to submit his written explanation. You discipline a second time. This is actually your employee's last chance since a third occurence of the same violation or another type of violation would actually line him up for dismissal from the service.

Now, let's just say that he did commit the same offense a third time. Once again, you go through the same procedure with serving the violation notice and requiring him to submit his written explanation. Now this is where you let the ax fall on his head. This time you serve a dismissal notice to your employee indicating that his services are no longer required by the company due to his habitual offenses on the job as documented in the past, the last of which was this particular violation.

However, there are employees who will not accept or sign the termination or dismissal notice. What do you do? Make sure that during the service of the dismissal notice you have a witness present in your office who can vouch that you followed proper procedure as prescribed by law. If the employee refuses to sign, you can write down that remark on the paper and ask the witness to sign his name on the paper to indicate that he witnessed the fact.

I know it's easier said than done but problem employees have to be weeded out of the company the proper way. Otherwise, you might end up having to pay the employee damages for failing to give him due process as prescribed by law.