Jocelyn Fennewald

Let Freedom Ring: 5 Ways to Balance Freedom and Management in the Workplace

Happy Fourth of July to our American friends! 

On Monday, the United States celebrated its independence. Along with fireworks and barbeques, you’ll hear a lot of talk about freedom among Americans during the national holiday. 

This got us thinking and asking, “What does it look like for teams to balance freedom and management in the workplace?”  

More and more employees expect a certain level of freedom at work. Business researchers tell us that giving employees more freedom can lead to greater productivity, creativity, and satisfaction. However, managers struggle to find the right balance between the extremes of micromanagement on the one end and complete autonomy on the other. Ranjay Gulati at Harvard Business Review describes the problem well:

With the explosive growth of the internet and social media, people now enjoy innumerable channels for sharing concerns and ideas in their personal lives. Compared with these expansive platforms for self-expression, the workplace can feel downright stifling. The freedom of the outside world is banging at the corporate door, demanding to come inside. Yet most leaders are still afraid to open it, because they continue to view freedom and frameworks [or management] as antagonists in an intense tug-of-war. And since a tug-of-war can have only one winner, they pour their resources into regulating employee behavior.

We like Gulati’s working definition of freedom in the workplace that avoids this tug-of-war: “‘Freedom’ can mean many things, but here, as a baseline, it means trusting employees to think and act independently in behalf of the organization.”   

Notice his definition gives both parties—managers and employees—responsibilities in cultivating a healthy conception of freedom. Employees have a responsibility to think and act independently, not for themselves but “in behalf of (or in the interest of) the organization.” But managers have responsibilities, too. They must trust their employees and clearly communicate the purpose, principles, and priorities of the organization.

So how can you as a manager strike this delicate balance between freedom and management? Today we’re sharing 5 ways to get started. 

1. Communicate clear expectations.

Although the source is debated, it’s been said that virtues become vices when carried to their extremes. 

This is true of freedom, which becomes a vice when employees are given so much freedom that they don’t have a good sense of a company’s goals and expectations. They feel lost when they come to work without any parameters.   

Maybe you’ve personally experienced the chaos that can ensue in a workplace without clearly defined goals, expectations, processes, and procedures. You were frazzled because you were often in the dark. Your team might’ve been frustrated, too, because they weren’t getting what they needed from you, even though it wasn’t your fault. 

Communicating clear-yet-flexible expectations is one way to care for your employees so they’re able to work “in behalf of the workplace,” going back to Gulati’s definition of freedom.

2. Think of yourself as more of a coach and less of an authoritarian.

Adam Uzialko at Business News Daily says changing how you view yourself as a manager is the first step to giving employees more freedom. He writes,

Traditionally, managers give orders and employees follow them. To successfully change, you’ll need to view the role of managers as coaches instead of authoritarians.

Coaches guide, suggest, and provide structure for the team. They are still the leader, but the focus is on teaching and guiding, not ordering. This mindset also puts managers at the service of the team, instead of the other way around.

When you think of your management role more in terms of a coach or mentor, you’ll see employees begin to flourish. An “ordering” mindset usually leads to stiff rewards or punishments, depending on an employee’s performance . A “coaching” mindset gives employees opportunities to grow, even if they have to make mistakes and learn from them. 

Furthermore, a coaching mindset also puts you in service to your team, as Uzialko says. When you’re working in service to the greater good of your team and organization, employees feel they have an advocate. 

3. Empower people to tap into their potential.

A big part of coaching involves seeing someone’s potential and helping them reach it. When you view yourself as a coach, you’ll start to discover your employees’ strengths and praise them for those! Sometimes, they won’t even know they have certain strengths and skills until you recognize and name them. 

Here’s where that’s difficult as a manager. You might realize that someone has outgrown the position they were hired to fill. Maybe you or they have realized they might better serve the organization in a different role or department. Perhaps their skill set matches a need you’ve had for a long time, and your business has the funds to create a new position. 

One way you can provide more freedom in the workplace is to encourage employees to explore other opportunities at your company when they outgrow their positions or discover untapped potential. That might be difficult at first because it feels like you’re giving up your “A team.” But if you’re working for the greater good of your organization, too, then it will be stronger as a whole. 

When you give employees the freedom to reach new heights, they feel supported and valued, and they’re less likely to seek employment elsewhere. 

4. Invite employees to solve problems or give feedback.

A few years ago Mind Tools hosted a Twitter chat and asked people, “In your opinion, what is the essence of creativity?” Here are some of the answers: 

“My freedom to do my job. Everyone is creative in their own way.”

“Essence of ‪creativity is freedom to explore, express yourself without fear of being ridiculed.”

Mind Tools also asked, “What’s the top challenge in bringing creativity to the workplace?” People gave these responses:

“The workplace culture has to be ‘safe’ for prudent risk taking—and sometimes things WILL fail.”

“Control. Most workplaces and bosses want to control everything. Creativity needs freedom to explore, grow, attempt, even fail.” 

Notice that these questions were about creativity, yet all of the responses have something to do with the level of freedom people have in the workplace to speak their mind, solve problems, and take risks! 

Here’s the takeaway: managers spark creativity when they invite employees to solve problems and give feedback. 

As a manager, this means you must consistently balance 1) the need for structure and 2) the flexibility for change as a team or organization. 

You’ve likely heard the saying, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” If a business process—or a part of that process—isn’t working, it’s time for a change, and your employees might have the perfect solution. 

Communicate your trust and confidence in them by inviting them to solve complex problems or give their feedback—then follow through! This doesn’t mean you’ll accept every recommendation, but employees easily get discouraged when managers ask for their input but never do anything with it. 

Employees begin to shine when you act based on their feedback. 

5. Allow some flexibility in where and when people work.

Many companies had to quickly transition to remote work when the pandemic began. Now, many employees are preferring remote or hybrid work over in-office work all day every day. One way to allow freedom in the workplace is to recognize this change and offer some flexibility in where and when people work. 

Maybe your business can’t be fully remote. Good news: Jabra’s 2022 edition of the Hybrid Ways of Working Global Report surveyed 2,800 employees across 6 countries, and 60% don’t want to be fully remote—they prefer hybrid work instead! Of those surveyed who have full freedom to decide where they work, 53% choose a hybrid model. Can your company offer a hybrid model for work? 

Is there also a way to provide some freedom in when people work? Spotify, for example, provides holiday swaps where employees can work on a holiday and, instead, take off another holiday that better fits their cultural or religious beliefs. Some companies are experimenting with workweeks outside the standard 5 or 7 business days. 

When you give employees freedom in where and when they must work, they’re likely to be more productive when they’re on the clock. 

How do you give employees more freedom at work? We’d love to know—share your ideas and practices with us and our readers below in the comments section! If building more freedom into your work culture is a goal for you, we hope these tips help you get started. 

We’ve written about how automation can also give your team more freedom, and we’re always here to help you do that by maximizing your organization’s solutions. Schedule a call today, and we’ll share how our services can cultivate freedom and creativity where you work. 

by Jocelyn Fennewald

3 Common Pain Points FinancialForce PSA Solves

Managing projects and resources from start to finish is no easy feat. In many companies, departments are working in siloes or entering data into disconnected spreadsheets and solutions, and business leaders don’t know the best way to fix these issues. 

Our clients are often looking for scalable solutions that address these challenges and assist with current or forecasted growth in their professional services departments. The 3 most common pain points we hear about are inefficient project handoff, poor resource management, and revenue leakage from unbilled or underbilled services and products. 

How can FinancialForce PSA help you overcome these challenges? In today’s blog, we’re covering how adding FinancialForce to your Salesforce platform can alleviate these pain points in your business. 

1. FinancialForce improves project handoff.

Miscommunication is inevitable when departments are working in siloes or using solutions that don’t communicate with one another. This pain point comes up a lot in our conversations with clients in the services industry. 

Because FinancialForce is an application built on Salesforce, your business can manage service projects on a single, cloud-based platform with FinancialForce Professional Service Automation (PSA). This minimizes errors and tightens project handoff after your sales team wins and closes an opportunity. 

We’ve written a lot about how FinancialForce is the missing link you need between your front and back office. If you only have Salesforce, you’re likely using a PSA system that doesn’t sync or communicate with Salesforce very well (if at all!) or requires cumbersome code or customizations. With FinancialForce PSA, you’re able to gain the visibility you need between sales and services to see the financial health of your business and make decisions about the future. 

2. FinancialForce helps you resource projects easily and effectively. 

Your team isn’t reaching its full potential without the right project management system. Some of your employees might be overworked while others have the bandwidth for additional projects. Some might not be the best fit for the resource request they’re assigned. Others may have skills and certifications better suited for the needs of the project. 

A common challenge for resource managers is finding resources who best fit the criteria of a resource request. Finding a resource who matches all the project criteria can turn up few or no results. In many solutions, the resource manager must remove certain filter values to return resources in the displayed list.

FinancialForce PSA offers many ways to enhance resource management in your organization. For example, the application’s intelligent staffing feature helps you make quicker, more informed decisions by automating a lot of your project staffing process. 

Released in 2021, this feature “instantly evaluates skills and availability across regions, practices and groups, and produces a stack-ranked result set,” according to FinancialForce. This removes a lot of guesswork for your resource managers; all they have to do is select their project teams accordingly.

3. FinancialForce stops revenue leakage. 

Poor project management is a major source of margin erosion and revenue leakage.

Revenue leakage stems from unbilled or underbilled services or products delivered to your clients. Common reasons are improper scope planning, loss of control over budgets, or gaps between client expectations and key deliverables. 

FinancialForce PSA gives you a clear picture of a project’s “burndown,” which predicts if a project is trending correctly or going over budget. What’s even better? Retrieving a project burndown report takes only seconds with FinancialForce. You’ll be able to see a project’s hours budgeted, charged, planned, and unplanned. 

Automating processes with FinancialForce PSA is another great way to stem revenue leakage. Automation ensures growth in profit margin and billable utilization and gives time back to your team for more complex, revenue-generating initiatives. We wrote a blog about the positive impact automation can have on your team here if you want to learn more! 

Do these pain points resonate with you? We’ve seen how implementing and optimizing FinancialForce for our clients has helped them address these problems and prepare their business for growth. 

If you’re also ready to tackle these challenges, schedule a call today to talk to one of our mentors about your business goals. We’ll share how our team can help your organization get the most out of FinancialForce so you can make decisions about your current and future growth with confidence. 

by Jocelyn Fennewald

How Asperato Makes Getting Paid Easier

Getting paid—it’s what your business needs not only to be sustainable but to grow. However, the payment collection process can be difficult and frustrating from start to finish. 

Manual data input and duplication or messy payment integrations are common pain points for many of our clients when it comes to getting paid. Maybe you’re looking for a way to reduce manual processes, errors, and processing costs or add “Pay Now” buttons to your invoices. 

If you’re already a Salesforce or FinancialForce customer or considering it, Asperato offers a solution to these problems. Asperato is a payment collection and processing application that integrates with FinancialForce and Salesforce, providing a single source for viewing and controlling the customer’s journey, specifically in relation to payment. 

Regardless of your business model, Asperato makes collecting and processing payments easy. According to the company, very different business models use the app:

“The solution is used by a variety of business models including: franchises (multi-deposit accounts connected to a Single Salesforce Org), real estate (rental and deposit collection into escrow bank accounts), insurance (premium collections), non-profits (donations), membership organizations (membership dues), services and manufacturing (invoice dues), council and local government (service leveys and online payments) and many more.” 

Today we’re highlighting 3 reasons we recommend and implement Asperato to our clients for payment collection and processing.

1. Asperato, Salesforce, and FinancialForce work together to provide a single source for all steps in payment collection.

We talk a lot about how Salesforce and FinancialForce combined give you a holistic view of your business. Asperato connects payment collection and processing directly to your Salesforce platform, streamlining your business processes even more. 

Asperato is also a code-free solution for your payment collection needs that ensures out-of-the-box functionality and simple customization. 

How does it work? 

FinancialForce and Asperato worked together to build a connector called ReadyApp that brings all core payment functionality from Asperato to FinancialForce’s processes. You don’t have to worry about building or maintaining custom API integrations for different payment processors like Worldpay, GoCardless, Braintree, Stripe, Authorize.NET, and more. 

(The ReadyApp program also connects several other applications with FinancialForce—if you want to learn more about these partners, visit FinancialForce’s website here!)

Because FinancialForce built the integration, it’s maintained and thoroughly tested by FinancialForce and Salesforce. With Asperato, you’ll no longer have to use a payment collection and processing service separate from your Salesforce platform, minimizing manual data entry and errors while accelerating your payment collections and receipts.   

2. Asperato provides multiple options for processors and payment. 

We already mentioned some payment processors compatible with Asperato. You can connect other payment processors like PayPal, Adyen, Checkout.com, Payeezy, and more without the hassle of building and maintaining API connections.  

You can also securely save your customers preferred payment methods using authorizations. According to Asperato, “these can take the form of a tokenized credit/debit card, a direct debit mandate, or an eCheck authorization.” You can use these authorizations to collect one-time or repeat payments in the future. 

Do you or your customers have a preference for receiving payments? 

With Asperato, you can collect payments 4 different ways using FinancialForce’s integration: 

• “Pay Now” buttons, links, and QR codes – Asperato can generate a “Pay Now” button, link, or even a QR code for any sales invoice or other document that takes customers directly to their payment page! You can also send a link via chat or SMS. 

• Telephone payments – You can securely take payments over the telephone, which is especially helpful for chasing down those late payments! 

• Auto pay – You can automate the posting of an invoice and collect payments for subscriptions, memberships, and invoice values.  

• Community payments – If you utilize FinancialForce Community for your customers, you can allow them to self-serve, select, and pay invoices. 

Asperato is also secure and compliant with Scheme Rules and Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards. In fact, Asperato is ranked Level 1 in terms of PCI Data Security Standards, providing the highest level of security for card payments and putting your customers at ease.

With Asperato in place, card details also never touch Salesforce or the customer’s website. It is a 100% token solution! 

3. Asperato is built for scaling and new releases.

When you automate tasks and processes, employees don’t just gain time—they gain “brainspace” for

Choosing scalable solutions and supporting applications is crucial for your business. After all, your goal is to grow! Asperato has successfully processed $0.5 billion in the last 12 months, and the app is built to scale with functionality for processing payments in multiple currencies and territories. 

Asperato is also scalable for new releases, and the company announces new capabilities year-round. 

In Fall 2021, Asperato added the ability to include multiple sales invoices in a single payment.* If you have Asperato, you can click “Create Asperato Payment” on the “Account” page layout and select the invoices you want to create a payment for. Then you can send the ePayment link to your customer or process the payment on their behalf! 

Along with accepting customer payments, this spring Asperato introduced the capability to handle outbound vendor payments without leaving the FinancialForce platform. Using Payments Plus to pull up the payable invoices you wish to pay, you can simply click the “Pay” button, and the Asperato integration will automatically process payments via the API through Airwallex directly to your vendor accounts.

This removes the need for downloading bank files or manually logging into your bank account to make or issue checks, increasing security and reducing setup costs. 

We strongly recommend Asperato for streamlining the entire payment collection process, and we partner with the company to implement Asperato for our clients so it meets their unique business needs. Asperato Head of Global Sales and Strategic Partnerships Matt Tully said, “OpMentors works with the expert team at Asperato to ensure FinancialForce is in control of every payment collection journey." 

If you’d like to learn more, schedule a call today to talk to one of our mentors. We’ll share how our team could help you get Asperato up and running on your Salesforce platform!  

*This functionality is available only for sales invoices. This new release does not support single payment for multiple billing documents without customization. 

by Jocelyn Fennewald

How Automation Can Positively Impact Your Team

Conversations about the positive effect of automation often focus on increasing revenue and for good reason—automation does provide a big return on investment. 

But automation can also positively impact your employees! 

People spend a lot of time at work on manual tasks that could easily be automated. Everything from email marketing, recurring invoices, data entry and calculations, talent acquisition and hiring, and project status updates can steal unnecessary time from your team. 

At OpMentors, we’ve seen the positive impact automating tasks and processes has had on our business and clients’ alike. Today we’re sharing 4 reasons you should view automation as one way to take care of your team. Read to the end—we also give you some tips for getting them excited about it!

1. Automation does generate revenue, giving you the option to increase wages for your employees.

You’re probably familiar with what’s come to be known as “the Great Resignation” in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on the job market. In November 2021, the “quit rate” reached its highest in 20 years. 

According to a new Pew Research Center survey, the top “major reason” people gave for leaving their jobs in 2021 was because “pay was too low.” Of the 6,627 respondents, 63% said low pay was a major or minor reason they resigned in 2021.

Although this blog isn’t focused on how automation can increase revenue, automation does broaden your bottom line. 

Depending on your company’s needs, you can use some or all of that profit to pay your employees more. When employees see your efforts to pay them a fair, competitive wage, they’re motivated to stay amid a job market in flux.

2. Automation improves productivity and precision. 

In an op-ed backed by more survey data from employees, Susan Leonard writes, “Knowledge workers, on average, spend over 10 hours per week performing manual and repetitive tasks that could have easily been automated. That is over 65 days of time lost per employee.”

What if each employee in your organization is spending 65 days every year on tasks that could be automated? When you automate manual tasks, employees are able to spend less time on “work about work,” improving productivity and efficiency. 

Another positive impact of automation on your organization and employees is its ability to decrease human error. Automating manual tasks like data entry or recurring invoices can increase precision, putting employees at ease that their organization helps protect them against error. 

3. Automation increases employees’ capacity for complex and creative tasks. 

When you automate tasks and processes, employees don’t just gain time—they gain “brainspace” for working on complex, creative, and revenue-generating tasks! 

Responsibilities like sending emails to communicate the status of a project or scheduling a meeting are simple but quickly become a brain drain if they take away up to 10 hours a week from your employees. 

Many people apply for a job not only because it provides income, but also because they want to pursue a passion and do meaningful work. They’re easily burned out when they apply for a job they’re excited about but spend most of their time on manual tasks instead of what gets them out of bed every morning. 

Automation can free up time and energy to work on complex challenges and creative projects. 

These tasks were likely why employees applied to work at your company in the first place!

4. Automation boosts team collaboration and happiness.

It’s no secret that siloed departments and teams, multiple solutions, and manual processes make collaboration difficult. The problem is compounded when companies working this way are hybrid or remote. 

In a Salesforce article on the benefits of automation, Alex Edelstein writes, “According to MuleSoft’s 2022 Connectivity Benchmark Report, 90% of IT leaders say data silos leave organizations disconnected from the data they need to understand their customers, partners, and employees.” 

Automation can alleviate these problems, building bridges for easier collaboration between your organization’s employees and customers. 

You can see why automation also increases happiness at work. In a recent Salesforce survey of 733 automation users, 89% of respondents said they were “more satisfied with their job,” and 91% said automation “saves them time and offers better work/life balance.” 

If you’re still not persuaded, 76% of respondents said they were “more satisfied with their stress levels at work” thanks to automation solutions. When you prioritize automation, more employees will likely look forward to coming to work and contributing their skill sets in a healthier business culture. 

How to Get Employees on Board with Automation

Now that you know more about the positive impact of automation on your employees, maybe you’re wondering how you start implementing automation and get employees on board.

We want to leave you with some tips! 

1. Help employees understand the benefits. 

Fears of Artificial Intelligence (AI) replacing jobs is commonplace in conversations about automation, so you should be aware and sensitive that it might be a concern for your employees too. 

Others might be less trusting of automation to do the job and do it well, especially if it directly affects employees’ manual creative work or they’re still held responsible for the outcome of the automation. 

First, encourage them with this statistic: less than 5% of occupations can be fully automated! Affirm your gratitude for them and their contributions to the organization. Then share the benefits of automation in this blog with them. Communicate that you view automation as one of several ways you work to care for them and explain why they can trust the automated tasks and processes you’re putting in place. 

2. Ask employees for their input. 

Invite end users into the conversation when you’re deciding which tasks or processes to automate first. These employees will be most familiar with the formal and informal manual processes that can be automated. 

Formal processes are those with more standardized or documented steps. Identifying informal processes is more challenging. It requires a lot of communication from your team because informal processes aren’t well documented. These are usually processes employees created for themselves or follow because “that’s the way it’s always been done.” 

Ask them to contribute to the list of automations your company should tackle first. Then continuously seek feedback from them on which automations to improve or add next.

3. Make automation adoption easy!  

In our last blog, we shared some ways to increase Salesforce adoption because successful adoption of any new solution or processe is crucial to the success of your business. 

Automation is no different. You want to make adoption of automated processes as easy as possible for your employees. Check out our last blog—a lot of those tips are relevant to automation. 

Also look for automation solutions that require little or no code. At Salesforce, Edelstein writes, “Traditionally, there hasn’t been an easy way to connect different systems, data, or workflows without having to write a lot of code… Low-code automation bridges that divide with pre-built connectors and point-and-click tools to unite processes, data, and systems.” 

Salesforce, Financialforce, and their supporting applications offer many low-code solutions to make automation adoption easier. 

At OpMentors we’re passionate about helping you get the most out of your solutions, including their automation capabilities, because we’ve seen the positive effects they have on employees. We help business leaders like you automate tasks and processes every day with Salesforce, Financialforce, and other supporting applications. Schedule a call today to learn more about our services, from implementation and optimization to ongoing support. 

by Jocelyn Fennewald