Business 101 August 19, 2021

Learning How To Manage Your Employees The Right Way

By Juancho Robles

Completed Staff Work is a practice that ensures productivity and efficiency. Here's how you can implement it, both in managing employees and in your business.

One of the most difficult tasks of business owners is managing their employees so they can execute their jobs correctly or in accordance with their expectations. But many times, business owners are frustrated because their employees just don’t get it. Before a job is thoroughly completed, repeated instructions had to be made, back-and-forth revisions need to be done, and consequently, deadlines are missed.

Financial Investigations at the FBI

In my experience as a business consultant for both local and international companies, I noticed a management practice adopted by a number of organizations abroad—mostly non-profit and government agencies—that seem to address the issue of having to repeatedly instruct employees to go about their tasks.

Back in the day, when I was working abroad in the US, I also observed this practice when I was assigned as a member of an FBI-led public corruption task force. At the time, I was the forensic accounting expert in the FBI task force (translation: the “numbers guy”) since I was a CPA and familiar with financial structures.

Most of my work was focused on reviewing paper trails related to the theft of federal funds, public corruption, and money laundering activities. No “blazing guns” were involved here (so, I was disappointed) because we mostly ran after white-collar criminals in suits. But I did get to participate in exciting FBI raids, where we executed search warrants. The FBI guys I was with literally kicked down doors, especially when the suspects refused to let us enter the location.

Leaving No Stone Unturned

During these FBI raids, I was tasked to secure any equipment that may contain any potential evidence. Those days, the FBI team seized not only documents, but everything—lock, stock, and barrel. And since I was in charge of evidence related to money laundering, anything I pointed at with my fingers that might contain evidence gets tagged and taken by the FBI—like cabinets, vaults, computers, and in one instance, paintings.

It was critical that we get all the possible evidence in one go—the "goods," so to speak. Once we leave the scene, we can no longer go back—even if we forgot something. That's because, under the law, we can execute the search warrant only once.

During these FBI briefings—usually conducted hours before a search is carried out—I came to know about one of the best management practices that ensured that no mistakes were made when carrying out instructions. This was employed by our taskforce supervisor to make sure that we leave no stone unturned and that all evidentiary objects, information, and documents are secured during a search.

Completed Staff Work, Explained

Later on, I learned that this practice was called “Completed Staff Works.” I was not really aware of the term at the time but found the practice to be really effective.

The term Completed Staff Work, or CSW, was coined by U.S. Brigadier General E.R. Smith sometime in 1943. Originally, it was a military concept involving “the study of a problem, and presentation of a solution by a staff officer, in such form that all that remains to be done on the part of the commander, is to indicate his approval or disapproval of the completed action.”

CSW eventually found its way to the Philippines and was first adapted in 1993 by the Presidential Management Staff (PMS) during the Ramos and Estrada administrations. In fact, President Ramos was known to return documents to his subordinates if their work did not meet his expectations. He even wrote in red ink “CSW needed” on the documents he returned.

Many government agencies followed suit and mandated CSW training in their roster of training modules for government employees. I even had the opportunity to conduct CSW training for a number of government agencies. In one of my training, the Head of the agency summarized the main proposition of CSW by telling his subordinates—"Pag wala na akong tanong, you have done CSW!”

What are the Advantages?

CSW may result in more work for the staff or employees, but it also results in more freedom for the manager or the head. Furthermore, it accomplishes two things: one, the manager is protected from half-baked ideas and voluminous but irrelevant memos or presentations, and two, the staff is held accountable for his work output. For the latter, the employee is encouraged to give his or her best at all times.

Additionally, CSW flattens the hierarchy and speeds up the decision-making process for managers. It's an efficient approach that prevents going back and forth endlessly, especially when you're trying to come up with a solution. Instead of relying on the manager to decide on the best course of action, the team members are bringing their best solutions to their superiors.

Overall, performing CSW allow you and your team to work smart. Plus, by getting the job done right the first time around, you can lessen the hassle of revisions or going back and forth.

Practicing CSW in the Workplace

So how do we go about practicing CSW in our workplace? The critical part of making CSW work is by ensuring that the superior (or manager) and the subordinate (your staff or employee) understand their specific roles in completing the work, task, or project that they intend to accomplish.

The role of the superior is to clearly state the problem, identify the accountable persons, set limits and boundaries, establish deadlines and provide advice and guidance. In other words, the superior—aka the boss—should tell the subordinates exactly what he or she wants and what they need to do to get approval.

On the other hand, the role of the staff is to fully understand what the superior wants. In doing so, he or she must clarify and identify the issue or problem before doing any work. The staff must research and analyze the issue or problem, identify alternative solutions or options, and develop specific recommendations. In other words, end result is a well-researched recommendation or solution after considering and evaluating all available options.