People Management Elements

The objective of this element group is to enable the organi­zation to develop people and habits that are very capable of making continuous improvement in the business. People need to be involved and have the tools, techniques, aware­ness, and motivation to make an unprecedented number of improvements at an unprecedented pace. It is the "people" elements that enable this behavior.

Quality is essential to having defect free processes. Doing a job right the first time error free is the desired result. One process that is relatively error free in most businesses is the payroll—and that is because we will accept nothing less than perfection! If we can do it in payroll, it can be done in order entry, engineering, and accounts payable. Charting tools, problem solving techniques, and variation reduction are all parts of the quality focus.

Performance can be measured in many ways. One example would be to chart the number of defects on orders that are entered incorrectly.

Decision Making affects everyone. We all have decisions to make. The key question is "do we all take the same action given the same set of facts?" Probably not! For example, take the credit department. With a given set of information on a particular company, would two people in your business grant credit? What if it was a close call? What criteria do they use to make the decision? The secret here is to find the best decision makers in the business and transfer what they know into the minds of all who must make the same decision.

A good performance measurement here would be the per­centage of all identified decisions that have the thought process charted (this does not mean written in a policy and procedure manual).

Housekeeping and Visible Control are closely related to the quality of the work that is done. With an impeccably orderly workplace, time is not wasted by searching for lost documents or tools, and a message of quality is displayed. Visual tools are used to highlight waste, communicate prob­lems and accomplishments, and communicate performance.

A measurement system for housekeeping can be estab­lished by a team of, cross functional employees who judge each area of the office periodically against a set of estab­lished criteria. The areas with the best housekeeping are rewarded accordingly, and a spirit of competition often occurs.

Total Employee Involvement includes everyone in the improvement process—and that means active participa­tion. From the company president to the last operational employee, it must be everyone's job to find problems and fix them every day. And that dos not mean finding the million dollar solution—it means finding one million dollar solu­tions. This is not a suggestion box system, but is a method for all employees to become effective problem solvers and work on opportunities each day. When done correctly, the approval process for making change is removed from many situations.
A performance measurement may be the number or rate of ideas for improvement implemented by all employees.

To be Continued