Today, companies face a tremendous challenge with staff shortages which should remind companies that people, specifically their employees, are the most valuable resources. Replacing or backfilling vacancies is a long and arduous process with the result not always guaranteeing a great match between the company and the new hire. Companies willing and eager to invest in their employees and appreciate their value and contributions to the company can turn the company-employee relationship into a “win-win”.

Today, companies face a tremendous challenge with staff shortages which should remind companies that people, specifically their employees, are the most valuable resources. Replacing or backfilling vacancies is a long and arduous process with the result not always guaranteeing a great match between the company and the new hire. Companies willing and eager to invest in their employees and appreciate their value and contributions to the company can turn the company-employee relationship into a “win-win”. 

There are so many reasons why a company-employee relationship is severed. An employee may choose to leave an organization due to a relocation, a life-changing event, a better opportunity, better benefits, and pay, or a career path change. In those cases, a company may struggle to prevent the loss of the employee. However, sometimes the root causes stem from an unruly boss, frustration within the day-to-day work environment, or a belief that what they contribute is not valued or needed. Months of an employee feeling undervalued, disrespected, unimportant, and in some cases not heard or seen, lead to the point of resignation.  In these cases, it is likely the resignation could have been prevented if we had stopped long enough to do the thing, we naturally do with process problems by diving into the root causes and taking the proper corrective actions to fix the problems. 

How do we develop a culture within the company with this level of commitment to their workforce? It begins with embracing the belief that your most valued resource and asset is every single one of your employees, from the CEO to the plant manager, to the security officer, to the intern, to the front-line operator, to the janitor. Rank, age, pay, or seniority must not be the deciding factor on who is respected. Truly, every person is critical and must contribute to making the company, its’ processes, products, quality, and cost, better. However, you can’t just tell people they are respected and empowered to make improvements; this creates chaos, confusion, and loss of process controls. You must demonstrate respect and build systems that empower people.

After embracing the belief that your most valued resources and assets are your people, the second step is to create an environment that works in ways that remove frustrations and obstacles while providing opportunities for growth and continuous improvement by and for the employees.  

1.      Don’t waste time, energy, or resources on building processes or systems that make work, decisions, or improvement harder. This includes creating workarounds, band-aids, or adding layers of process redundancy. This may be required in the short term to prevent nonconforming products from getting to your customers, but they increase waste and, very often, add frustration among your teams. 

The emphasis should be on engaging your teams in good problem-solving which addresses root causes. In doing so, the gains can happen quickly, since more people are working on them, while also providing long-term improvement. Your employees will thrive on the additional information they receive about their jobs, their increased voice in how their work is done, and the new challenges and interactions they can learn from.

2.      Don’t allow a culture that accepts indecisiveness or permits subpar quality or processes. Allowing subpar to exist in a company not only creates a less efficient, more costly product or service, but over time, will undermine, permeate, and erode processes and morale in departments across the organization. Most employees are willing to struggle through short-term issues because they know correction of root causes takes time. However, when short-term issues become long-term, both morale and performance suffer. To prevent this, take time to gain the necessary knowledge (from Gemba), then quickly and decisively make the proper modifications. The goal is not to make things perfect, rather focus on small, quick improvements that make it better and better. 

3.      Design systems that allow for learning and engagement to gain deeper knowledge and understanding. In some cases, we need to allow people and systems to fail, so that through failure people reemerge stronger and wiser. Remember the goal is to have everyone in your company understand basic problem-solving and focus their thinking and knowledge on how to make the work, the products, and the processes better. The focus is not on building workarounds or blaming others. 

In my experience, when people are respected, trusted, and valued, they understand they are a part of something bigger than just themselves. Companies can ensure that each team member can learn, develop, and grow into their role by not wasting time and resources developing subpar systems and processes, and not allowing indecisiveness among your ranks. Instead build systems that facilitate learning, engagement, and knowledge transfer by ensuring your workforce continues to build a culture and a longing for real, value-based improvement. How have you seen companies either fail or succeed at building systems and processes that incorporate the workforce into building respect for all its employees via continuous improvement? Feel free to post your thoughts in the comments section.