Out of Class Hip-Pocket

Work, work, and more work. For my out of class presentation,  I chose to talk to all the employees of Custom Finish Cabinets. Willing or not, they were my audience for my presentation as they had no choice because this was going to be a company wide meeting, and as manager it fell to me to let everyone know of the changes we are making. For the past few years we have been steadily getting busier and busier. At the first of the year we added a second shift to stay on top of the work orders of just our main eight contractors. The rest of the work we get we turn down.

A few months ago the owner and I sat down and discussed many aspects of the company. At this time I told the owner that we needed more room. The day shift crew are practically on top of one another in the shop. We have little room to move around when each division/area is doing their part of the job. I didn't want to raise our overhead after buying the building last year. I have another cabinet shop renting out the back half of our building and didn't want to loose on that income, but we needed more room. After much thought we decided to add about five thousand feet onto the back of our building and in doing so, we will take over half of the back building and have our renters keep the back half plus the new addition which will give them the same square footage as before. In doing so I keep my renters and increase my shop by five thousand feet with very little increase in overhead.

In my presentation I shut down the whole shop and had everyone gather around one of our big work tables. I explained that we are going to make a few changes in the shop. At this time I informed that we are adding on to the shop. I went down a list of changes that are going to take place over the next six months. The spray booth will be moved into the new area as well as setting up the older and smaller spray booth next to it so we can have both booths running at the same time. We are moving the boxing table (where we assemble the cabinets) into the new area also. I informed them that by moving these two divisions into the new area that it will increase the room in the front of the shop. With this extra space we are planning on getting a new machine by the end of the year. With this new machine we will be able to build a european type cabinet. This will increase our diversity in building these type of cabinets, where as if someone wants euro instead of face frame cabinets we would sub it out to a cabinet shop across the street. By doing this we can keep everything in house.

This presentation turned out to be just another meeting that we have every three to four months. It was very easy for me to present this information due to the fact that only I had this information and to the fact that I was their boss. By being their boss it gave me an advantage over those I was presenting to. The setting was informal which put me at ease in conveying this information. I used a sketch to show all the employees the new layout of the shop once the addition was completed. At this time I asked for feedback on the new layout of the shop. I have always found this to be a good thing to do for two reasons. First it gives the employees some sense of ownership and say in the shop, even if we don't go with the ideas that were mentioned. The second is a different perspective. At times I will have a thought of how I think things will work best, but then someone may come from a different frame of mind and see something that I overlooked.

In looking back I felt I did a good job in getting the information across to the employees. At the end I asked everyone how I did on the presentation. I received great reviews, which I believed were biased due to fact that earlier in the meeting I thanked everyone for working so hard and putting in a lot of hours to get these jobs done and out on time. In thanking them I handed out a fifty dollar bill to each employee and told them to take their wife out to dinner. Looking back on this I should have given them the questionnaire before I handed out the bonuses. I know from these presentations that I have done so far that if you know the information, I mean really know the information then you will not have to try to remember this information because you know it deep down inside, it's apart of you. By really knowing this information you will be able to focus all your attention on the audience and direct your presentation around them and not trying to remember what you have to say next. The more you present the better you become. There are many areas that I can improve on and by focusing on the information that I have learned in my studies and from others in class I will be able to check and better myself each time I present.