The art and science of business management have undergone profound changes in the past century. Today’s techniques would be unrecognizable to someone who worked in the field just a generation ago. The old-fashioned top-down approach has been replaced by a more team-oriented strategy as responsibilities are spread among groups in modern-day practice. But what else has changed, and why are the 2020s such a pivotal time for managers?
For one thing, technology is now an ever-present factor in nearly every managerial decision. Additionally, employee attitudes have begun to transform the design of workplace evaluation and motivation programs. Salary and hourly pay rates are not as relevant to workers as they once were. Likewise, in modern times, employees are far less likely to be loyal to the companies they work for. Job hopping is commonplace, and management struggles to retain competent personnel. Faced with few long-term careerists on their rosters, corporate leaders are increasingly turning to temporary agencies to fill in the gaps. Review the following facts to gain a deeper understanding of two managerial practices that are changing the way managers work.
Cameras Play a Central Role in Fleet Management
It’s not a shocker that camera-based tech plays such a huge role in modern businesses. What’s not so obvious is that fleet managers are at the forefront of leveraging the power of cameras for multiple purposes. Vehicle fleet management is a highly developed sphere of practice that encompasses a wide range of demanding tasks. In addition to routing and assuring on-time delivery, fleet supervisors employ NVRs (network video recorders) and related systems to gather pertinent data about all levels of operations.
The result is higher levels of efficiency, enhanced security, and all-around improvements in safety. If you manage a vehicle fleet, you can learn how to select the NVR system that’s best suited to your company’s needs. Focus on high-end IP units, cameras that come with cloud storage, features that include remote access to recorded film footage, and VMS (video management system) capabilities. Never purchase an NVR system sight unseen. Always go into the process as an informed buyer. That way, you’ll have the best chance of getting exactly what your fleet needs.
The Team Approach is Falling from Grace
Individualism took a hit in the late 1990s. That’s when managerial leaders began transitioning to the team concept of project completion. Results were mixed even after a full decade of supervisors and owners pushing the idea of teams at the expense of the old-school individualist approach to projects, tasks, and all sorts of other duties. In today’s tech industry, it’s nearly impossible to find any project that is not under the auspices of a team. Workers in that industry rarely hold individual responsibilities.
Colleges and universities support the anti-individual philosophy by deemphasizing solo work, assigning group homework, and giving final exams as team projects. Fortunately, the dismal results of the team-oriented approach have at last convinced many large corporations to revert to former, more commonsense methods. The 2020s could surprise many in the academic business world by becoming the decade in which collective work groups gave way to more efficient tactics that were in place in the early part of the previous century.
