Pitch in to help make ends meet.
How do we make ends meet? Everyone is asking that question these days whether it be on a personal level or a business level. We have less money, fewer people, and fewer resources in general-and there is no magic wand that will solve all the problems many of us face. The old platitude of "working smarter, not harder" is good for what it's worth, but sometimes sage advice isn't enough when you're running operations. When all your people are running flat out taking calls and helping customers, expenses are going up, and everyone's already working long hours, you must find a way to control the bleeding of time and money without compromising the level of service your customers have come to expect.
You as a manager may have to get in the trenches and take some of the load off your people. Even if you feel technically challenged or out of practice, you can still take the load off some of your people by answering calls and gathering information to help them through the first stage of solving a customer problem. Some of the people on your front lines may have regularly scheduled calls with customers that don't require a lot of input, but do require attendance- participating in these calls can also take some of the load off your people.
Think about it. Your staff is your only resource when you provide services. If you burn them out by being short handed you'll have nothing to fall back on if you really need it. Get in there and feel some of the pain so you can at least learn first hand where some of the shortfalls are and begin to prioritize improvements. Fixing them may have to wait for greener times, but if you do these things your people will work harder and respect you more than if you sit on your duff moaning about lack of resources.
