Continuous Improvements in Business

One of the frustrating things for me is working for companies that have a limit prospective and claim to be progressive yet are totally in denial of being stagnate.

How many time do we here senior management promoting incentive schemes? Offering bonuses, career opportunities, and then finding out that the targets are unrealistic or unattainable. Senior management comes up with the idea; middle management puts the onus on the shop floor personnel, shop floor personnel have to make it happen and cop the brunt if it doesn’t work.

Too often employees come up with ideas and proposals that ignite passion and enthusiasm but find rejection of their ideas, usually by management, blaming cost or that the idea will disrupt the running of the business.

When I listen to the management talk, all one can hear is the negativity oozing out. The excuses for not doing something rather than giving reasons as to why one should do it, flow like torrential rain.

Most businesses have too much stock or have the wrong kind of stock, a lot of it stored with gay abandon through out the storage area (that is if there is a storage area).

The 3 principles of any business:-

1) Cleanliness

2) Ordliness

3) Tidiness

Put simply, a place for everything and everything in its place. Keep everything clean and tidy. Put things where they are suppose to be and don’t over load shelves/areas with stock. Of course there are many other things like training and environment etc but let’s keep it simple.

Face problems for what they are; challenges that need to be tackled head on. Fix the problem not the blame. Do not place blame on someone who was not trained or was inadequately prepared to tackle the task. Look at what the problem was and putting in place countermeasures to prevent it happening again.

One major problem with mangers today is they fear losing control and are afraid that should someone from the shop floor show any type of intelligence they will lose their jobs.

CEO’s and Managing Directors seem to think employees thoughts are centred around the almighty dollar and that by offering a certain amount of cash as an incentive will bring employees into line. While money is important, the environment in which they work, how they are treated are more important. Take away an employee’s dignity and you create a workplace that has neither heart nor soul.

The workplace is and should be constantly changing, looking for continuous improvement not sitting in a stagnate mindset just because “That’s the way we always do it!”

Written by Steve Boddey