If you don't think that the happiness and well-being of your front line people is the key to achieving continuous improvement, then this article is not for you!
Image by Drazen Zigic on Freepik
It is well–know that “kaizen”, commonly translated as “continuous improvement”, is at the core of Toyota’s business philosophy. Its fundamental premise is that improvement is less about making big leaps forward than making small things better, in small ways, everywhere possible. More than that, it rejects the notion that only a select few in an organisation are responsible for making improvements, insisting instead that it has to be an everyday task and concern of all employees at all levels.
Well set up, an effective system for capturing and acting on ideas from all employees can deliver enormous benefits:
People feel they are listened to and can contribute
People are happier in their work and feel the organisation is paying more attention to their well–being
The organisation taps into the knowledge, skill and experience of everyone
More time and energy devoted to problem–solving and improvement activity
Improved performance as a result of changes made
This results both in happier customers as they get better products more quickly, and improved margin and profit
Despite this, in many western organisations, continuous improvement remains the province of dedicated CI teams running improvement projects or the ironically named “Kaizen blitz” events – full time, short burst events designed to achieve a “step change” in performance. This seems a long way from the “everyone, everywhere, every day” improvement that the kaizen philosophy represents, so why does that occur?
Or, perhaps more pertinently, what stops the establishment of a culture where contribution of problems and ideas for improvement becomes the norm for everyone?
In my experience, the answer if often rooted in poor experiences of “ideas schemes” or “suggestion schemes” in the past. While well–intentioned, many such schemes don’t deliver what they set out to achieve and are abandoned; I’ve picked up so many stories from clients over the years about their bad experiences with such schemes.
Why idea schemes stumble
With the above in mind, it’s worth identifying some of the reasons why ideas schemes go wrong before looking at what is required to set up an effective scheme.
Reflecting on my experiences and research over the years, I have identified the following reasons for poor performance of ideas schemes.
Ideas are captured without context
Often the system for employees putting in their ideas simply capture the idea. Thus, whoever is assessing the idea, often someone in an office far away from the area where the idea originated, is left wondering:
Why the idea has been submitted?
What benefits it will give or what problem it will solve?
Not only that but, in many cases, the scheme allows ideas to be submitted anonymously, so they have no idea who to contact to answer these questions. As a result, they have to make a lot of assumptions when deciding whether or not to accept or reject the idea.
As a side note, it’s important to recognise the often-positive intention behind the idea of anonymity – that of removing any fear of comeback associated with submitting what may be an unpopular suggestion. However, this suggests a wider issue with organisational culture that is better addressed elsewhere.
Improvement: ensure that ideas capture context:
Why has the idea been submitted?
What benefit will this bring / what problem will it solve?
Who has submitted it, with contact details
People are reluctant to contribute ‘small ideas’
Many of the ideas that people have will be small things. People may fear they have no grand insights to offer and will hesitate to submit them.
Improvement: clear messaging about the principles of kaizen
Lots of little ideas result in big improvement
All ideas welcomed and valued
People don’t get a response
A common observation is that ideas are submitted and seem to disappear into a “black hole”. People can wait weeks or months for a response or never get one at all. When the response does come, it may be little more than that their idea was accepted or, more often, rejected, with no explanation about why. As a result, they feel like they have wasted their time and disengage.
Improvement: robust process for review and assessment
As many ideas as possible reviewed by the originating team or local management
Clear measures on ideas raised and response time that trigger action if target time is exceeded
Timely feedback to originator whether idea is accepted or rejected, along with reasons why/why not
Assessors overwhelmed
Of course, one reason for the previous issue may be that those assessing the ideas are overwhelmed by the volume of ideas received and simply can’t work though them quickly enough. This rapidly leads to a backlog and ever increasing response times.
This may simply be a lack of capacity, often compounded by the “lack of context” issue above requiring more time to assess the ideas. Equally, the steps they have to go through to get approval for an idea may be time–consuming and involve others rather than them being empowered to take the decisions themselves.
Improvement: assessors well equipped
Team leaders, managers and other assessors well–trained and empowered to make decisions
Additional support provided to ensure response times maintained
Doesn’t generate real engagement and action
Often, poorly functioning schemes really on “someone else” to take action on ideas rather than involving all staff, especially those raising the ideas.
In many cases the individual or team submitting the idea could be involved in taking action to put it into practice, yet are not because “that’s not how we do things here” – the expectation is that responsibility for action is down to [X].
Of course, in some cases the idea submitted requires action by someone else, so that’s understandable. However, even in such cases, involving the originator to ensure that the action delivers what they expected.
In either case, and opportunity for engagement and motivation is lost and may diminish the overall effectiveness of the scheme.
Improvement: originators involved in review and action
Action taken locally as far as possible
Originators involved where action taken elsewhere
People not properly guided on how to think about and record their ideas
A common complaint about idea schemes is that they are used as an opportunity for people to have a grumble about things. Having been frustrated for a long time, the establishment of an ideas scheme gives them the opportunity to “let off steam”. This can be particularly true where suggestions are anonymous, so there is no ownership or accountability for what is submitted.
Again, perhaps this suggests something about the culture. However, I may also indicate that there hasn’t been enough guidance on what type of ideas are helpful and how to record them, thus giving those submitting the ideas a real opportunity to impact improvement in the organisation.
Improvement: clear guidance and training on the process for everyone
Everyone encouraged to identify local improvements that benefit them
Team leaders and managers equipped to coach teams on identification, capture and action on ideas
Creating an effective scheme
In order to help you create to help you create an effective scheme for capturing and taking action on employee ideas and problems that will deliver the benefits and avoid the pitfalls, I have created a guide called "Getting everyone involved in improvement" which you can download for a small administrative charge.
The download comprises a written introduction to the principles and processes involved in creating an effective ideas scheme. In addition there are detailed guides to the individual steps, like the one you see here.
Once you have your copy, if you would like to discuss how you will implement your scheme, please either email, call me or use the button below to book a free, no obligation 30 minute consultation session.