Employee Engagement: Improving a Damaged Process

One company I worked for made flexible pouches for the medical device, food and military markets.

I'd just recently joined and was following my first order through the plant, so I was still getting to know the people in the production department as well as the processes they used to make our products.

When I came around to the line where my customer's product was being made, I noticed nearly all the operators had bandaids on their thumbs.  So I asked one of them why so many people were wearing bandaids.

This particular customer's product was formed and then diecut to shape in a second operation. To ensure the printing on the pouch was in register to the seals and the overall shape of the pouch, we used what is called a pin registration system. This means that, when the pouch is formed, a series of holes are simultaneously punched around the perimeter of the pouch. When the pouch is diecut, it is placed on a board with a steel ruled die and the holes punched in the pouch fit onto pins mounted in the die board to ensure the pouch is cut consistently and with print in register with the seals and the overall shape.

In this case, the operator explained they were puncturing their thumbs as they struggled to stretch the pouch over the die board to align pins with holes in the pouch. The pins being used were actually nails which, of course, had sharp points.  Moreover, the nails were aluminum roofing nails and were so soft the operators were constantly trying to straighten them out - the tension of the stretched pouch was causing the roofing nails to bend.

This particular product was new to me, but had been run before in our plant and the operator told me this was how the company had been doing this operation "for years."

I liked the ingenuity of using nails for registration pins, however, the type of nail being used was so soft they would only be truly in register the first time they were used.  As more pouches were cut, the nails became more and more distorted.

I went to the production manager and suggested they modify the design of the die to use steel nails, which were much stiffer and more resilient.  I explained the operators were getting injured from using the original die design and the aluminum nails were not helping us produce a consistent product.

The next day, I found the diecutting operation going a bit quicker, and the die boards now had steel nails instead of aluminum.  I asked the operators what they thought.  They told me the new "pins" lasted much longer and they didn't have to keep trying to bend the pins straight.  However, the pins were still nails and they still had sharp points.  People weren't getting hurt so easily, but they were still getting hurt.

Now I spoke with our plant engineer about the issue in our diecutting department.  Like me, he thought using nails as pins was resourceful, but still a long way from being a best-in-class die design.  He modified the pin system to incorporate spring-loaded steel pins with rounded tops.

When we introduced these to the diecutting department, the feedback from the operators was very positive and productivity improved.

I think the operators in this plant appreciated having someone come out to see how they were struggling with a poorly designed process.  Even though our first modification - from aluminum to steel nails - wasn't a complete success, it showed the operators someone was listening to them.  We reinforced that by getting more input from the operators, which led to our plant engineer's solution.

Another thing I found was that, when I went out into the production floor, the operators seemed much more helpful and friendly.  People opened up.  We talked about families, pets, hobbies - and about the processes we used to make our products.  One operator gave me a complete tour of her department - just because I asked "why do you do things this.....?"

Let there be no doubt about it, the people in the diecutting department knew they had a faulty process.  But management either wasn't listening or was just too cheap to do things the right way.  The employees were afraid to ask for improvements.  It just took someone from the front office going out to ask how things were going to get the feedback and drive some action to remedy the issue.

Employee Engagement: Building a Better Workplace

This week, I'm going to switch gears and, instead of relating an anecdote, I'd like to share some things I learned in a recent webinar given by the Canadian Management Centre.

In August, 2012, Ipsos Reid prepared a report on employee engagement in Canada.   They interviewed 1,200 employees at over 500 companies, as well as 484 human resources managers.  The report covered 25 industry sectors. 

As managers, we'd love to think that our employees absolutely enjoy working for our companies.  However, the Ipsos-Reid study indicated that only just over a quarter - 27% - of employees consider themselves engaged.  Disturbingly, 23% classed themselves as totally disengaged.

I think it's safe to say most employees would be quite content to stay with the same employer throughout their careers.  However the study suggested only 37% of employees think their employers are doing a good job of retaining good employees.

What are the economic effects of employee engagement?

One school of thought is that the cost of employee disengagement is the product of one year's average salary times the rate of voluntary turnover (i.e., employees who resign)

According to Ipsos-Reid, employees who are highly engaged in their jobs are 2-1/2 times more likely to consider themselves satisfied with their jobs - and 1-1/2 times more likely to excel in their jobs. To me, this suggests that companies who foster engagement among their employees will have a team that outperforms their competitors.

This correlates with popular wisdom among sales managers that sales people who strongly believe in the product (or service) they're selling are the ones most likely to succeed.  Their passion about the product is infectious and helps them persuade customers to buy.  Their passion - and success - make the job fun, and that makes it a lot easier to get out of the office and make calls on customers, which, in turn, generates even more sales.

A key factor in building employee engagement is for managers to actively get out of their offices and spend time getting to know the people on the front lines.  Really, this is a matter of communication, and the Ipsos-Reid study dealt also with how communication impacts engagement.

Interestingly, another payoff for developing engagement is that, by moving an employee from actively disengaged to highly engaged reduces the likelihood of them leaving the organization by 92%.  If your best and brightest aren't engaged, cultivating positive relationships with them could be your best way to avoid losing them.

According to the study, overall, 68% of Canadian workers are at least somewhat satisfied with their jobs.  When workplace issues (such as working conditions, business cycles, potential layoffs etc.) are seen by employees as being communicated in a timely manner, job satisfaction increased to 88%.

The interaction of "management by walking around" probably is one of the best ways of building engagement because it promotes regular flow of information back and forth between manager and employee.  It permits some key company initiatives to be conveyed informally (which may also be perceived as more sincere) and allows employees to express concerns before they build up to a crisis.

The webinar is posted on YouTube.  Here's a link to take you there:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89NTnL6ilYI&utm_source=Campaigner&utm_campaign=2013_Post_NTLS_August_8_webinar__&campaigner=1&utm_medium=HTMLEmail&utm_content=2013_Post_NTLS_August_8_webinar__

Another CMC webinar from December 2012 presents highlights of the study.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go7MKm4WjC0

People have Customs; Customs are People

Anyone who has traveled internationally has encountered customs officials.

Usually they look stern and impassive and, when we meet up with them, we feel like we're being interrogated (which I suppose we are).  To most of us, they're intimidating.  We look on customs officials as wooden, bureaucratic and cynical - people who can find guilt in the most innocent of people.

However, there IS a human side to customs personnel if you give them a chance to show it.

One of the companies I worked for sold equipment and I regularly carried a demonstration system with me whenever I traveled.

On a couple of occasions, when I was going through US Customs, I was asked to get a document called a carnet, which is basically like a passport for equipment and which demonstrates that the material listed in the carnet is only entering the country for a limited time and would be returning to Canada with me.  The carnet came with a cost (which was not huge), but my boss did not see the need for the carnet because he had had no problems taking equipment across the border himself.

One morning, I was going through US Customs for a week-long trip to the East Coast and was refused entry because I did not have a carnet and it had been documented that I was supposed to get one.  I had never been refused entry to the United States before, so this was a major personal blow, though I did end up driving down and managed to see all the customers I had planned to visit on that trip.

If I thought I had it bad, another person going through about the same time as me was heading to a trade show in New York with a number of hand-tooled saddles.  She had no documents to declare the value of the saddles and was unable to satisfy the customs official that the saddles would not be sold at the trade show and be returned to Canada.  He told her the only way he would allow her to enter the United States was if she used a box cutter to cut into the saddles to make them unsalable.  She obviously wanted the saddles in pristine condition to display at the show.  I don't know how here experience played out - whether she declined to go to the show or if she damaged her merchandise to be able to participate in the show.

My case for getting a carnet was now much stronger, and we got the document.

Using a carnet requires the carnet-holder to clear Customs in his/her home country and then Customs in the destination country, reversing this on the return journey.  Each time Customs takes a fiche or page from the carnet and stamps the document so the other customs officers can verify that procedures have been properly followed.

When flying, the carnet can only be cleared through designated international airports that have a customer office, which restricts where a carnet-holder can depart.  At Laguardia Airport in New York, the US Customs office is about a half mile walk from the terminal in a separate building, but usually Customs is somewhere inside the terminal building.

From a Customs officer's perspective, the carnet is a professional way to handle temporary importing of equipment or tools.  It demonstrates the carnet-holder's openness about declarable items as well as being properly prepared for customs inspection.  And you get more of an opportunity to interact with Customs personnel.

One one trip to the US - just before Thanksgiving - I had a pleasant chat with the customs inspector about holiday preparations and got his recipe for smoking a turkey.

One time I was driving and declared to the primary inspector what I was travelling with.  He asked, "Plasma. As in the 4th state of matter?", which caught me a bit off guard.  It turned out he was a science buff and watched a lot of Discovery Channel.  I asked if he'd like to see the equipment and I could explain to him how it worked.  We spent a pleasant 15 minutes together.  He could show his supervisors he'd done a thorough inspection, he learned something new and I got my equipment across the border so I could make my sales calls.  We both won on this exchange.

On a return journey from the US, the time getting customs documents was taken up by comparing notes on operations the customs officer and I had had.

Coming back into Canada one time, I was standing in line in secondary waiting for my turn and one of the officers called out, "Is that a carnet you have there?" When I confirmed this, I was whisked to an officer who I guess had had a full day of going through passenger's luggage looking for prohibited food, alcohol and tobacco and for her, it was a welcome relief to deal with someone who had things in order.

Customs people have a tough job to do to protect our countries.  They are trained to be wary so they can spot potential smugglers or criminals and often this wariness is what we see when we go through Customs.  But they are still people.  If you treat them with respect, it's possible for the human side to shine through.

Employee Engagement: The New Meaning of Gamesmanship

Employees love to be involved in the business and one of their biggest concerns is the health of the business, because it determines the security of their jobs.

Many companies hold “all-employee” or “Communication” meetings on a regular basis to share results or to discuss topics relevant to all employees, such as safety.  For the managers, it means sharing data (which some hate to do) and time away from what they perceive as more important tasks.  For the employees, it often means an hour of incredibly boring statistics and lecture from the management.

It can be difficult to see how well employees absorb what they’ve been presented, but I’m certain employees retain little of what they’ve seen and heard from these meetings because they’re overwhelmed by the masses of numbers that have been thrown at them.

I tried a different approach at one company.

To present my sales and business development numbers, I structured my presentation around the concept of the game show, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”.

We gave a few employees from the floor the opportunity to be “contestants” so they could answer questions about business development.  There were several questions along the lines of “How many new customers did we develop in the latest quarter?”  Each question had 4 possible answers.

Our contestants had support opportunities like “Lifeline”, where they could have a friend help, or “50/50” whereby two incorrect answers were eliminated.  Programming to do this in PowerPoint actually wasn’t all that hard, and it was more than adequate to re-create the gameplay.

When we did the presentation as part of our quarterly communications meeting, the employees ended up getting right into it.  Contestants had the audience shouting out what they thought was the right answer, and it really recreated the atmosphere of the TV show in our cafeteria.

Even though our segment was only supposed to run about 10 minutes, it was the segment the employees voted as most interesting.  They had some fun.  They were involved in the presentation and everyone got to participate in some way.  Best of all, they remembered the statistics we had presented.

Presenting data to employees can be a waste of everybody’s time if the message gets ignored because the way it’s being presented is overwhelming or just plain boring.  To some, it may be hokey to use the game show approach (and it probably isn’t appropriate for some topics), but the WAY in which the information is presented can have a dramatic impact on attentiveness and retention of that information.  If work can be fun, it no longer is drudgery.

Employee Engagement: Learn to Walk the Line

A couple of years ago, I interviewed for a job as a General Manager for a manufacturing company.

When I was briefed about the position, I was told their employees were on strike and that I'd have to cross the picket line for my first interview.  I'd never crossed a picket line before, but there had to be a first time.

On the day of the interview, I drove out to the plant, and allowed some time to get there early enough that I could see the picket line and observe the procedure for crossing it.  The company had told me to allow 15-20 minutes just to get through the picket line.

The strike was an issue for the company.  They asked me if it would have any impact on their ability to acquire new customers. I told them it would, in my opinion, convey a company that was dysfunctional.  Even more so because the strike had gone on for two years without a settlement. The union involved in this case was the steelworkers, and I knew they had a reputation for being nasty.

I approached the picket line with trepidation.  One of the picketers came over to my car and formally told me there was a strike in effect and that I would have to wait for 15 minutes before I could proceed to the parking lot.

At this point, I thought about what I should do.  These picketers could potentially be employees I would have to work with on a day-to-day basis.  I could stay in my car for the 15 minutes or get out and talk to the picketers to see what I could learn about the strike.  I chose the latter.

Having told one of the picketers I was there for a job interview, I asked what the strike was all about.  They were very open in explaining the key issues behind the strike.  I asked them how they managed to cope with living having been out on the strike for such a long time and I heard stories about how some moved into other jobs or companies to be able to support their families.  They told me about what they had to sacrifice to make ends meet.  Somehow our conversation segued into talk about golf, football and other things.

The 15 minutes went by pretty quickly and the picketers gave me the go ahead to drive to the parking lot and gave me directions on how to find the entrance to the office.

The formal part of the interview was comparatively tame - a plant tour and discussion with the plant manager and the company's HR manager.  I was subsequently invited for a round of interviews at the company's corporate offices.

For this phase of interviewing, I met with people from R&D, Finance and Sales.  My final interview of the day was with the CEO.

He asked me how the day had gone and about my interest in the position.  Eventually, he got round to asking about the strike. The CEO proudly stated the company had brought on replacement workers who were exceeding the productivity of the union employees and the company was able to keep pace with demands of exiting customers.  He asked, as I'd been asked before, if I felt the strike would adversely impact their ability to attract new business.  

I told him the strike definitely WOULD give potential customers some concerns about the company's ability to supply them in a reliable manner.  Settling the strike had to be the top priority for the new GM.

The CEO told me, in no uncertain terms, he had absolutely NO intention of settling the strike.  They'd made offers to the union and the union was unable to sell those terms to their members, so the union was the problem.

From my viewpoint, I now had a clearer idea of why the strike had gone on as long as it had and who was responsible for that situation - and it wasn't the union.  At this point, I made up my mind that this was not a position or company I wanted to work for.

The Leadership of a company sets the tone for how it runs.  In this case, the leadership of this company was confrontational and this had created an atmosphere of distrust among the employees.  As it turned out, the plant I interviewed at was closed down and sold off within a year of my visit there.

They may be picketers, but they still are people.  If you treat strikers on an adversarial basis, you'll probably get a lot of push-back. Approaching them as people and showing some empathy helped me make the best of what could have been a bad situation. My approach was to treat crossing the picket line as a first interview.  I was almost 100% certain there would be some feedback to the company about how I behaved on the line, and I wanted that feedback to be positive.  I think I took the right approach.

Music at Work

On weekends, I play in a band, and have been doing so for about three years.

A lot of people might think this is a frivolous way to spend my free time. Given the image of the music business, many might think we're into drugs, sex (as well as rock 'n' roll).

The truth is that my band is made up of guys like me. We're all in our 50's. We all enjoy music. And none of us have any expectations we'll be raking in Grammy awards and seeing gold albums on our walls.

Another truth is that playing in a band is, in many respects, like running a business. Here's how.

TEAMWORK

Unless you're a very talented musician like Frank Zappa, in a band, it's really important that everyone be playing the same song in the same key, at the same tempo and at the same time. Otherwise you have cacophony (a musical term for chaos).

Each member of the band has his/her part in the piece.

Drums provide the rhythm, tempo and time signature that everyone else depends on to keep together. Bass provides a foundation for musical structure of the piece. The other instruments (and I'm including voice as an instrument) fill in the melodic and rhythmic components of the piece. Usually, the onther instruments will perform solos in turn - each having an opportunity to express their interpretation of the melody of the piece.

Together, it sounds wonderful - better than any part individually. However, if someone doesn't do his/her part properly, the musical term is "train wreck."

COMMUNICATION

Communication on stage - or in a jam session - is critical to the success of the performance. When we watch jazz musicians play, it difficult for most of us to understand what's going on and how/why different players come in at different times.

Uusally, before starting, the players agree on an arrangement and in which order everyone will solo. While we've all heard songs where someone shouts out something like "Play it, Johnny!", most musical cues are a form of non-verbal communication. They could be the nod of a head, a particular sequence of notes that indicates the conclusion of a solo or just looking eye-to-eye at the next soloist. The non-verbal cues make the whole performance look seamless when done properly.

The basic structure of the song - melody and chords - provides a framework for soloing, and some of the cues, but direct communication between musicians is what really makes it all work.

Music also requires good listening skills.

As you're playing, are you playing in the same key as everyone else? Is everyone hitting the same point in a bar at the same time? These listening skills help the musicians adjust how they play so they all are synchronized.

POSITIONING

Most people think that a band plays by picking songs and just getting up and playing them.

However, there's an element of positioning in any band. Will the focus be on blues, country, rock, jazz, folk or some other genre? There has to be consensus among the players on what style of music will be played and, once this consensus is reached, the common interest in the genre helps inspire and unite the musicians.

In our band, we have regular meetings to discuss adding songs to our repertoire. We might reject some as being too country or too heavy for what we consider to be our style (and skill). Songs get added when we all feel we like the tune and/or beat and would be fun to perform.

The analogy in business would not only be positioning, but also strategy.

PRESENTATION SKILLS

In sales, marketing and politics (among others), the ability to get up in front of an audience and deliver an engaging presentation is a critical way of connecting with the audience.

So, too, with music.

A good performance depends on preparation or, in musical terms, rehearsal. Our band rehearses weekly for about 3 hours and we systematically run through our repertoire of songs we perform as well as work on songs we WANT to perform. It takes us about six weeks of rehearsal to do our entire catalog.

In our rehearsals, we make certain we have the basics of the song down pat, but also work out our solos so, while each performance might be a little different, we've each established the basic approach we want to take to our solos.

By rehearsing like this, when we get up in front of an audience, we all feel comfortable about what we're going to do.

All bands work off a set list. Think of this like a playlist - a sequence of songs to be performed. We put the songs in a particular order so we have something at the beginning that's familiar and gets the audience's attention. Similarly, the closer of each set will be a song strong enough to leave the audience wanting to hear more. We'll vary the tempo of the songs in between so the mood doesn't become monotonous.

THINKING on your FEET

When we listen to a studio recording, we are hearing a finely tuned version of the piece, whereby each bar is usually recorded over and over again until a perfect "take". Every time you listen to that recording, you will hear exactly the same rendition - note-for-note.

In a live performance, the basic structure of the piece may be pretty close to the recorded version, but the solos will most likely be different.

The solo represents an opportunity for the performer to express his or her own unique interpretation of the piece. While the performer may have a rough idea of how to structure the solo, each performance is different. That interpretation can be influenced by the performer's mood at the time, cues from the other musicians and by the audience response. In some respects, the solo is the opportunity for a performer to demonstrate true musicianship - more than just an ability to play by rote.

We sometimes have had guest performers join us onstage for a number or two, and the injection of a new group member creates a whole new dynamic for the performers.

If the guest artist is a singer, the other musicians have to follow the singer's lead and style - which can be very different from those of the singer they normally work with. Adapting to a different performer requires using those listening and communication skills I mentioned earlier. This usually is helped by the basic structure of the song (chords and melody).

When a performance like this comes off really well, it is as much a tribute to the musicians' communications skills as to their musicianship, and it usually makes the performance more interesting to the audience. It builds confidence among the team members that they can handle forces that could be potentially disruptive.

CODA

For the members of my band, the band is an outlet for our creativity, but also an oportunity to connect and enjoy playing with each other. It's also something we can all see us continuing into retirement.

So, the message I want to leave you with is that an individual's hobbies can help them develop skills that are useful of which can be applied in their jobs. Hobbies make us more interesting as people by adding dimension to our character. Explore these with your staff.

Ron