Over recent years I’ve consulted to a number of web design agencies, social media and SEO marketing businesses.  What is common in this industry is the unique challenge the owners face between the creativity and leadership of web design, copy writing, content creation roles and managing the balance of different skills of creatives, developers and designers required to deliver their services.

From my experiences there are a number of case studies to demonstrate how, looking at things from the perspective of a productivity expert, quickly uncovered additional profit potential – which may never have come to light had we not had the discussion.

Productivity vs Creativity

Behind the technical development work, web design involves a large degree of creativity, but the perception exists that maintaining productivity levels stifles creativity.   Working with the Directors & Project Managers of a thriving web agency, the surface issues highlighted that projects were running over budget, eroding the profits.

The Project Managers were spending too much of their working day updating and manipulating spreadsheets to try and keep on top of scheduling the outstanding work.   Although their existing software had extensive project task lists and the amount of work remaining to be completed was visible, estimates of how much budgeted time was still required to finish the job were not visible.  The project management was task focused, but not time managed.

This lack of reporting systems or logging time, meant information was not readily available to monitor how much time was spent on each project.  Individual projects could not be managed to ensure they achieved the required profit margin.  It was also not possible to tell whether sufficient jobs were completed in a week or over the months, to recover the overhead costs of running the business, until the financial reporting was completed a couple of weeks after each month end.  By that time it was too late to act, and address the inefficiencies.

As our work evolved, and their understanding grew of how productivity directly affects profitability, the Directors quickly recognised it would be a key measurement needed in the business.  They would need to track and monitor the time spent on the design, development and launch of the web packages, as well as the management and administration time involved in delivering the projects.

Despite our best efforts to establish productivity measures by asking the team to log in to projects on the company software being tested at the time, the software simply didn’t have the capability to provide meaningful productivity measurement reports.  We had to either revert to manual tracking and reporting mechanisms or look for a different software.

As manual tracking would add, rather than detract from, the already overburdened administrative tasks, the business owners took the bull by the horns and did their research.  Having only implemented a new software package the previous year, they took the brave decision to adopt a completely new software, that would deliver the productivity reporting, and start over again.

This has paid dividends (no pun intended), with information now being available to report on the levels of resource dedicated to the projects, compared against budget.  The team can be better managed to focus on what’s behind schedule, where too much time has started to accrue on individual projects, or where more projects can now be started as the work is being finished more productively.

Additionally, as the time logs begin to provide more meaningful information as to how long each part of the project is actually taking (rather than estimating), this can be fed back into the budgetting for more accurate quotations in similar projects, for future quotations.

The company has the luxury of using this reporting and the data to decide whether to increase the profit margins by maintaining their pricing structure but using less resource, so achieve higher margins, OR maintain their current profit margins, and pass on the productivity improvement to the client, making themselves more competitive in the market.

The important point here is that had they not known the detail of how much time the programmed tasks would take, they would not have had the facts and figures to drive and inform their strategy decisions.

Overskilled?

Another web design agency I consulted to, recognised the work assigned to an expensive senior developer could and should have been done by a more junior, less costly role.

The amount of time the senior developer spent on complex coding was less than 10% of their total work load, so the value they were adding to the client project was not justifiable for the cost of salary and employer expenses incurred by retaining such a highly skilled resource.

There was also the problem of frustration on the part of the senior developer, being asked to spend most of their working hours on relatively simple coding, which would have been quite demotivating for the employee concerned.

The owner took the difficult, but logical decision to remove the senior developer role.  This required them to take on the complex coding themselves, which is not idea but for the level of work involved at the time, was the right decision.  A junior developer was then recruited at a much lower salary base, contributing to a more sustainable and profitable business.

Under Utilised

This last case study demonstrates how costly under utilised staff can be if not highlighted and addressed, especially in this new era of remote working where a manager of business owner isn’t always working alongside the team to see how they’re managing the work load.  It’s a natural extension from the first case study, where logging the actual time spent on specific tasks of the project work was the main issue.  But in this case, the actual planning of the work wasn’t managed sufficiently by the owner, to achieve acceptable levels of utilisation to ensure a profitable, sustainable business.

During the launchpad workshop of this digital marketing agency, we reviewed the to do list the business owner used to share the workload between their staff members.  This was a simple spreadsheet for the week, listing the copy writing requirements, social media marketing scheduling for clients etc.  The business owner had, quite rightly, developed standards of time of how long each piece of work should roughly take, but this wasn’t translated onto the spreadsheet of the team were working from, so the staff were completely in the dark as to the owners expectations.

Using that week’s list, I suggested the owner added in a column of the time allowances they based their resource requirement planning on, for each of the job roles.  When we summed up the time of all the jobs on the weeks list for each team member, quite alarmingly it highlighted that one person would be utilised about 19% of their working hours for that week, and the other employee for just 6% of their time.

Clearly this demonstrated the business owner could onboard a significant amount of additional clients, to achieve a much higher turnover and profitability, without having to increase the salary cost to his business.  It would mean, however, that a more robust management system and monitoring mechanisms would need to be developed and implemented, to ensure the workload would be delivered to the required quality standards and within the allocated time frames.

Three Key Solutions to Boost Productivity

Taking the individual challenges faced by the owners of the 3 case studies above, we can summarise three key solutions to boost productivity, without stifling the creativity required in the digital industries.

1. Set Standards

Time Budgetted

Ensure each piece of work assigned has a budgeted time allowance and the staff involved are aware of how long they should be spending roughly on the task.

Record Time

There should be a mechanism for monitoring or recording the actual time spent, and the actual time reported in the system where it’s visible. The time allocation for each specialiaty or skill is the key driver for the project profitability so if that’s not being recorded the manager or owner has no way of knowing where the project went over budget.

Monitor & Control

The company’s management systems should include a point of monitoring for each staff member to review their performance and productivity.  If the information is recorded that provides a tangible and objective reference point to guide the employee, and reduces any ambiguity as to what’s expected of them.

Review & Refine

The monitoring meeting is the opportunity to check in with each team member and disucss what went well, what they struggled with, and support them with extra training or guidance to improve the next time.  This is the fundamental concept of continuous improvement.

2. Explain Scope & Quality

It’s probably most relevant when onboarding a new client project, that the team are given a complete overview of what the client has been sold, in terms of size, depth and quality of a website, or marketing campaign.  If your team are overdelivering but taking up a lot more time than has been budgeted then your profit margins will begin to erode.

Its up to the account manager to ensure the clients expectations are met, but the team have to stay within budget if your business is to succeed.

3. Balance Your Resources

As I demonstrated in the case study above, it’s important to know how much resource you need not just in terms of quantity, but also the ratio of skills for the mix of projects you have.  A strong forecasting and budgetting tool should help you ensure you recruit according to your project requirements, and avoid bringing in expensive staff that won’t use their skills to their best advantage if your portfolio of projects doesn’t require it.

It’s important to ensure that the team you build are kept interested.  A senior software developer is soon going to become demotivated and lose interest if they spend the majority of their time on low level coding that doesn’t stimulate them or make best use of their skills.  They’ll soon get bored, and move on – potentially taking your clients with them.

Your Next Steps to Greater Productivity

In summary, to optimise the productivity of your teams and maximise your profitability, you need robust technical management control systems combined with balanced, well-trained, supported and engaged employees to create an evolved, effective team who will work together to achieve the results you seek.

Alluxi is here to offer you support through these times of change, bringing a facts and figures approach to evolve your business and realise your goals.

As a first step towards identifying your current business challenges and evaluating where your future opportunities exist within your business, we invite you to complete the Alluxi Business Success Scorecard.

Take just a few minutes to respond to the scorecard and see how your business ranks in 10 key success areas.  You’ll be invited to book a follow-up Productivity to Profit Breakthrough Session to discuss the results in more detail and identify how you can implement rapid and measurable improvements.

Click here to take the Alluxi Business Success Scorecard now

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

The post SCALING UP IN THE CREATIVE WORLD of Web Development & Digital Marketing appeared first on Alluxi Consulting.

SME’s make up 97% of the UK’s food and drink manufacturing industry, and many faced rapid and serious cashflow concerns during the pandemic.  As such, many businesses are in a tentative space, cautious of growth or onboarding additional labour resources.

Many companies are asking, ‘how can we make the best of the assets we have, whether it’s the facilities or technologies at our disposal?’.  We know that people ultimately drive productivity, so the industry should be asking what it can do to inspire employees to be more productive?

The Garden of England – a benchmark?

As a Kentish Maid, born and bred in the Garden of England, I was sensitised from a very early age to the wonders of locally grown fruit and vegetables and the benefits of having a local butcher, baker and fishmonger on our proverbial doorsteps.

During summer holidays, me and the kids on my street would often be scrumping apples, pears and cherries from our local farmers’ orchards.  As we reached our teens, we would often be earning our first pay packets fruit picking strawberries, raspberries and black currants.

Controversially when the UK joined the “common market” way back in the ’70s, we began to see the demise of not just Kent’s producers but also the UK’s agricultural and farming industry.  Does anyone else remember the butter mountains and milk lakes that resulted from subsidies imposed on our farmers?

I have been dismayed to see the deterioration of our Kentish produce over the last half century, but having been back in the county for 15 years, I’m quietly optimistic that the recent seismic economic changes will revive the agri-food industry throughout the UK, not just in Kent.

Triple Blows to the Agri-Food Industry

As we now emerge out of the European Union, combined with the impact from Brexit and the additional strains the pandemic has reeked on the industry through the demise of the hospitality and brewing industries, many food and drink manufacturers are battling against a tsunami of consequences on their businesses from so many different angles.

• The labour market previously fuelled through the free movement of labour between EU countries has all but dried up completely, with the government now offering EU nationals residing in the UK up to £3,000 each to return to their native countries

• As a consequence of the labour shortages, the hotel, restaurant, and pub businesses are having to reduce their opening times as a consequence, forcing the producers to be more creative in finding alternative channels direct to the consumer.

• New trade deals outwith of the European community are being shaped every day by the government, with the most recent Australian agreement potentially impacting UK lamb farmers.

• HGV drivers are now also in short supply affecting the distribution channels of foods, and fears that supermarket shelves will suffer shortages. This may have a positive impact at a local level if consumers turn to their local shops and high streets, but it doesn’t help those businesses trying to make inroads into the broader national markets.

• The sugar tax, and recent regulatory bills being brought before the house of commons surrounding advertising restrictions on “junk” foods, are now adding additional pressure to the industry profitability.

No surprise then, the Office of National Statistics recently published that, compared with the 2019 whole economy industry average productivity levels of about £36.00 per hour worked, the food and beverage services industry was about 54% less productive.

Hope on the Horizon – Public’s Shift to Buy British

The SME businesses in this sector have to work harder than ever to ensure their survival in the markets. Productivity has to be the key focus if they’re to maintain their margins in a very competitive arena, with ever-increasing barriers.

However, according to a recent survey by Lightspeed GMI/Mintel, one glimmer of optimism for the industry is a positive shift in consumer attitudes, with 40% of shoppers surveyed agreeing that British food tastes better than imported. The survey also highlighted that

• 59% of shoppers agree that they try to buy British food whenever they can.
• 78% agree that it is important to support British farmers.

With this change in consumer thinking, the SME sector in the UK’s food and drink industry has an opportunity to capture the public’s spending power.  If you are going to be amongst the first to harness this opportunity, you are going to need to gear up the business operations, open up your local channels to market, and ensure your teams are productive.

Boosting Productivity – People & Process

In my years of experience in a wide variety of food and beverage businesses ranging from fizzy pop, whisky and wine, to chicken, beef and pork abattoirs, most SME’s are still heavily dependent on labour resources.

The larger corporates, such as Kelloggs, have invested heavily in technology, machinery and single operator plants. Still, the SME arena doesn’t have that luxury, tending to manufacture smaller (and fresher) batches, with a focus on artisanal, home-crafted produce.

Fudge Kitchen and Cook are two Kent-based firms that have successfully achieved steady and sustainable growth, adapted to their market, but are still reliant on a strong team of employees both in both production and retail, as they have chosen to market directly through their own retail outlets on the high streets as well as through supermarket chains and hotel chains.

The key to improving on that quoted 54% productivity cited by the ONS is maintaining high levels of employee engagement.  This requires a multi-angled approach of both technical Systems and the tactical Mindset through training.

Systems – The Technical

Firstly the technical side of your business, its operational Systems (not necessarily IT software), have to provide accurate real-time data that allows you to take regularly informed decisions before off-schedule conditions that deteriorate into fire-fighting get out of control.

Systems, however, also include the workflows and business processes that should define exactly how the work will be done to optimise productivity to best practice standards.  As new technologies or fresh ideas surface, then these standards may evolve and change over time. Still, as long as they are documented and disseminated to ensure the team adopts the correct procedures, then the systems will ensure that best practise behaviour is perpetuated.

Management control systems are the main focus of this approach. The design and development of meaningful, tangible Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) are the drivers towards measuring the outcome of the workflows and processes as to whether they are the most effective to achieve the results.

A robust management control system will also provide data telling you where in the process the inefficiencies exist. In turn, this will highlight how much that’s costing your business (time, money, materials) and focus your managers’ reviews and collaboration with employees on reducing those weaknesses.

Mindset – The Tactical

The second strand is the Tactical, or training and generating a positive mindset. This relates to how you develop your people to ensure they agree with, have bought into, are trained in, and understand how to achieve your defined best working practice.

Training must be a core part of all managers roles –  to be consistently coaching, facilitating, mentoring and training each individual to ensure they are engaged with the best practice standards, understand how they can improve their individual results, and focus them on achieving success.

Tracking Your Business Culture Evolution

Your company culture may feel very intangible – how can you measure how engaged your staff are right now?

After spending many years searching for a powerful tool to monitor and measure teams engagement without spending large sums of money developing in-house software and potentially re-inventing a wheel that was already out there, Alluxi was delighted to be introduced to the EngagementMultiplier survey software tool and to become an EngagementMultiplier Partner.

EngagementMultiplier ticks all the boxes in providing a regular finger on your culture pulse. Every 90 days, an anonymous short survey provides both quantitative and qualitative feedback from everyone in the business, allowing you to pinpoint precisely who may be feeling any dissatisfaction. The data and metrics provided by the survey tool are integrated into your management information systems for your leadership team to work on addressing the issues.

The Key to Success

To achieve sustainable behavioural change, both the Technical Systems and Tactical Training strands have to be implemented together.  Without defined management systems and standardised working methods, the opportunity to perpetuate best practice is lost or diluted, and your results will reflect that.

Implementing new systems or methods without involving the people who have to work within these frameworks will not achieve their buy-in or employee engagement required.  There will be no unified desire to “make it work”.  Your system will then inevitably fail, leaving you feeling frustrated, and your company culture deteriorates to one of blame, criticism and negativity, productivity will drop, and your profitability will pay the ultimate sacrifice.

Many businesses invest in training on the other side of the coin, with employees returning excited with their new knowledge and full of ideas, ready to put their newfound theory into practice.  However, if they don’t then have the power or autonomy to make the necessary changes, then the time and money invested is wasted.  The manual sits on the shelf, gathering dust and the employee is disillusioned and demotivated. Your culture will stagnate as people lose faith that your business is capable of changing anything for the better.

Your Next Steps to Greater Productivity

In summary, to optimise the productivity of your teams and maximise your profitability, you need robust technical management control systems combined with well-trained, supported and engaged employees to create an evolved, effective team who will work together to achieve the results you seek.

Alluxi is here to offer you support through these times of change, bringing a facts and figures approach to evolve your business and realise your goals.

As a first step towards identifying your current business challenges and evaluating where your future opportunities exist within your business, we invite you to complete the Alluxi Business Success Scorecard.

Take 10 minutes to respond to the scorecard and see how your business scores in 10 key areas.  You’ll be invited to book a follow-up Productivity to Profit Breakthrough Session to discuss the results in more detail Kent-based and identify how you can implement rapid and measurable improvements.

The post INCREASING PRODUCTIVITY IN FOOD & DRINK MANUFACTURING appeared first on Alluxi Consulting.

Is there Hidden Opportunity in Your Business?

There’s a saying that ‘What you Don’t know Won’t Hurt You’.  In business however, what you don’t know could be significantly impacting your profit potential.   When working with business owners, Alluxi’s key focus is to illuminate hidden opportunity in your business – stripping away layers of inefficiency and misconception, to highlight and exploit your true productivity potential that can translate into greater profitability.

As a first step, the Alluxi Launchpad Workshop, including a free Alluxi Business Success Scorecard, provides a taster of the Alluxi toolbox and techniques. In a short half day workshop, we do a deep dive into the detail of your business.  It doesn’t take long to expose where greater productivity can be achieved, and how to maximise the profit potential for your business.

In this month’s blog I’m bringing live examples that turns on its head the belief that ‘What you don’t know won’t hurt you’. From SME’s in three different industries, these short case studies demonstrate how looking at things from the perspective of a productivity expert, quickly uncovered additional profit potential – which may not otherwise have come to light had we not had the discussion.

Covid Restrictions Unexpectedly Created Greater Efficiency

As much as the pandemic is causing chaos for most businesses, for the care company I’ve been consulting to over the last 2 years, a compliance requirement from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) unexpectedly boosted this dynamic organisation towards greater productivity.

Providing domiciliary care, the business was required to minimise the number of individual carers visiting vulnerable clients, to reduce the potential spread of the virus.  Some clients receive up to 4 visits a day between dawn and dusk, each requiring different services and skills from their pool of resources.

With over 100 staff in the field on any one day, some without transport reducing the geographical range they can cover, the logistics can be complex.  Adding the extra parameter of minimizing the number of people visiting any one client into that mix, those logistics become even more problematic. 

Initially I was asked whether a spreadsheet could be created to coordinate, manipulate and manage the different combinations, postcodes, and visit types through pivot tables.  As I already had a broad understanding of their planning software, I suggested we review the possibilities of using the tools already available to them, rather than re-invent the wheel using a clunky, fragile and potentially corruptible spreadsheet.

A short Zoom call, brainstorming the functionality of the software with the MD, Registered Manager and one of the Coordinators, resulted in a list of queries the registered manager could approach their software support company with.  Within 2 days of setting up “clusters” on the system for specific postcode areas, a pilot was carried out in one small geographical zone.  This quickly achieved the desired results of reducing the number of different carers attending each client, reducing the COVID risk, and the concept was successfully rolled out company wide. 

Now, the upshot of adapting the working practices to comply with regulatory requirements, even though it’s only been functioning for three months, has provided new insights and benefits from a commercial perspective.

Because the system has been set up to schedule care visits in much smaller geographical zones, the travel time and mileage costs are significantly reducing.  Additionally, as volumes grow, the time now freed up can be optimised to schedule in more clients.  Carers are paid per visit so this will boost their income and the business can offer their existing team more hours each week as demand grows. 

From a less tangible perspective, there are the longer term benefits of reducing recruitment and training time. Clients receive a more consistent service, and probably build a better relationship with their carer.  The team enjoy enhanced job satisfaction as they, in turn, get to know their clients better too, as well as the opportunity to increase their earnings if they wish.

Overall, it’s a three way win – for the clients, the staff AND the business.

Productivity vs Creativity

Behind the technical development work, web design involves a large degree of creativity, and the perception exists that maintaining productivity levels stifles creativity.   Working with the Directors & Project Managers of a thriving web agency, the surface issues highlighted that projects were running over budget, eroding the profits.

The Project Managers were spending too much of their working day updating and manipulating spreadsheets to try and keep on top of scheduling the outstanding work.   Although their existing software had extensive project task lists and the amount of work remaining to be completed was visible, estimates of how much budgeted time was still required to finish the job were not visible.  The project management was task focused, but not time managed.

This lack of reporting systems or logging time, meant information was not readily available to monitor how much time was spent on each project.  Individual projects could not be managed to ensure they achieved the required profit margin.  It was also not possible to tell whether sufficient jobs were completed in a week or over the months, to recover the overhead costs of running the business, until the financial reporting was completed a couple of weeks after each month end.  By that time it was too late to act, and address the inefficiencies.

As our work evolved, and their understanding grew of how productivity directly affects profitability, the Directors quickly recognised it would be a key measurement needed in the business.  They would need to track and monitor the time spent on the design, development and launch of the web packages, as well as the management and administration time involved in delivering the projects.

Despite our best efforts to establish productivity measures by asking the team to log in to projects on the company software being tested at the time, the software simply didn’t have the capability to provide meaningful productivity measurement reports.  We had to either revert to manual tracking and reporting mechanisms or look for a different software.

As manual tracking would add, rather than detract from, the already overburdened administrative tasks, the business owners took the bull by the horns and did their research.  Having only implemented a new software package the previous year, they took the brave decision to adopt a completely new software, that would deliver the productivity reporting, and start over again.

This has paid dividends (no pun intended), with information now being available to report on the levels of resource dedicated to the projects, compared against budget.  The team can be better managed to focus on what’s behind schedule, where too much time has started to accrue on individual projects, or where more projects can now be started as the work is being finished more productively. 

Additionally, as the time logs begin to provide more meaningful information as to how long each part of the project is actually taking (rather than estimating), this can be fed back into the budgetting for more accurate quotations in similar projects, for future quotations.

The company has the luxury of using this reporting and the data to decide whether to increase the profit margins by maintaining their pricing structure but using less resource, so achieve higher margins, OR maintain their current profit margins, and pass on the productivity improvement to the client, making themselves more competitive in the market.

The important point here is that had they not known the detail of how much time the programmed tasks would take, they would not have had the facts and figures to drive and inform their strategy decisions.

Hidden Figures

A prospect of mine, launching a radical new Accounting practice, approached me to deliver the Alluxi Launchpad workshop.  The business owner is hugely ambitious, and determined to bring accounting into the twenty first century.

Despite having a robust strategy document, there was no financial road map to match sales volumes or financial forecasting, and stress test whether the business would be profitable in the first year or two of trading.

In a few short hours, through the Launchpad Workshop, we created three foundation tools to focus and galvanise the business owner into action over the coming months.

1. A working business growth plan was delivered which the Director can update with real time information to immediately see the future impact of sales volume growth and resource costs on profitability.
2. A resource requirement plan will automatically calculate, based on the forecast sales volumes

a) Whether the existing resource in the business has reached its maximum capacity, and

b) how much additional resource will be needed at specific points in time, so it can be planned and recruited in advance

3. The workshop also provided an overview of the management systems and potential key performance indicators to drive the business forward to ensure profit margins will be maintained.

Getting the numbers and calculations out of the owners head and into a working spreadsheet immediately highlighted that the proposed forecast sales volumes versus the costs and expenses, would not produce the desired income and profit margin.  But by reworking the numbers and seeing the impact on the gross profit, the Business Growth plan crystallised exactly what would be required to achieve the results they wanted, and a future crisis has been averted.

What you Don’t Know Won’t Hurt You

In summary, these three examples demonstrate how, through opening up to fresh ways of looking at your business models, or how your operations are managed, your business can take a few simple steps in a different direction and your profits will grow as a direct consequence.

As business owners, we’re not always well versed in the art of running and managing a business.  This is the key downfall of many startups, where the business owner is an expert in the product or service they deliver, but needs specialist expertise to translate your business from the kitchen table, scale it up to a profitable enterprise through the path of least resistance.

Reach out if you feel there’s latent potential in your business, but you’re just not sure how to harness it.

YOUR NEXT STEPS TO GREATER PRODUCTIVITY IN 2021

 Looking ahead into 2021, Alluxi is here to offer you support through these times of change, bringing a facts and figures approach to evolve your business and realise your goals.

As a first step towards identifying your current business challenges and evaluating where your future opportunities exist within your business, we invite you to complete the Alluxi Business Success Scorecard. Take 15 minutes to respond to the scorecard and see how your business scores in 10 key areas.  You’ll be invited to book a follow-up Productivity to Profit Breakthrough Session to discuss the results in more detail, and identify how you can implement rapid and measurable improvements.

Click here to take the Alluxi Business Success Scorecard now

The post UNLEASH YOUR PROFIT POTENTIAL appeared first on Alluxi Consulting.

It’s not simply exhaustion. According to the WHO:

“Burnout is a syndrome conceptualised as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterised by three dimensions:

– feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion

– increased mental distance from one’s job, and feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job

– reduced professional efficacy

Burnout refers specifically to phenomena in the occupational context and should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life”

I completely relate to the WHO’s definition above, choosing to leave my previous globe-trotting career due to complete burnout in my early 40’s.    I didn’t recognise (or probably chose to ignore or accept) that the physical health problems, mental stress, and eventual complete breakdown that I experienced, were due to the sheer exhaustion, ridiculous hours and hectic schedule I sustained over a 12 year period.

The latter half of that period I was regularly travelling inter-continentally, working away from home sometimes for 3 weeks at a time.  My husband was a naval officer at the time, also having to spend weeks or months at sea, so I would occasionally have to travel with my two pre-school children.  Organising temporary creches or nursery schools, whilst I worked onsite with whichever client I was consulting to at the time, added more stress to the work life, as well as the feelings of guilt for dragging my kids from pillar to post (although they’ve turned out great).

Looking back, it was complete madness.  I started suffering from numbness, pins and needles in my hands and feet, migraines and sickness on a regular basis, and a constant feeling of exhaustion hindering my efforts to try and maintain my career trajectory and still be a great mum and wife.  Even after extracting myself from that career, I suffered serious health issues for another decade.  Only now, 20 years later, do I feel that I’m back to full health and in a great place mentally – despite lockdown.

So I really do relate to why the WHO are now classifying burnout as a definable disease.  Burnout and disengagement are on the rise as employees continue to work under challenging circumstances. Staff are either in fear of their health on the front lines, or logging long hours at home, in isolation.  And as I can personally testify to, when employees are burnt out, time away isn’t the solution. 

Coming to a company culture near you – a crisis 

The predicted crisis is the erosion of company culture – and the subsequent undermining of business performance – that will occur if business leaders fail to assess the impact 2020, and its continuation into 2021, has had on their employees. 

I suspect many leaders are experiencing the effects of burnout in their workplaces right now. Many employees have returned to work after the holiday break with dread, as the underlying drivers of burnout – including unreasonable workload, unfair treatment, and frustration caused by lack of role clarity and manager support – aren’t remedied by time off. 

Business leaders are about to be hit, out of the blue, with employee issues they never saw coming.  The tragedy is that this will occur just as businesses are poised for recovery and need all hands on deck.  Worryingly, this burnout will quickly turn into total disengagement if not caught and remedied.

But there are actions leaders can take to identify whether their own cultures are imperilled, along with steps for insulating the organisation from damage by developing a strong core purpose

Why It’s Important for Leaders to Assess Teams Now – A Solution

The burnout phenomenon and its underlying drivers are just one reason why it’s important for you to regularly assess your teams and gain a clear understanding of where underlying problems may be bubbling under the surface.  

Some leaders are suggesting they prefer to wait “until things settle down” or “we’re all back in the office”.  However, as we hope to start putting the pandemic behind us, and focus on recovery, you will be even busier than ever, whilst the issues present within your organisation will have had months to fester and grow.  

Savvy leaders who want to stay a step ahead will want to nip problems in the bud before they disrupt their businesses. This is where running an Employee Engagement Benchmark Assessment provides a litmus test to highlight any issues, giving you potential to make changes before it’s too late. It’s truly a case of prevention is better than cure.

Alluxi are proud to partner with EngagementMultiplier, a tried-and-tested online tool that provides the data and insights you need, acting as an early warning system, that enables you to see around corners and spot growing issues – before they become serious problems. 

Burnout & Employee Engagement – Contributing Factors

A leading researcher and expert on employee burnout, Christina Maslach noted in an article entitled Burnout is About Your Workplace, Not Your People

“Categorizing burnout as a disease was an attempt by the WHO to provide

definitions for what is wrong with people, instead of what is wrong with companies.”

There is a clear correlation between burnout and employee engagement. Gallup identified the top five reasons employees burn out are:

1. Unfair treatment at work
2. Unmanageable workload
3. Lack of role clarity
4. Lack of communication and support from their manager
5. Unreasonable time pressure

Fair treatment, role clarity, clear communications and support from ones manager are all drivers of employee engagement. However, when any of these are absent and are combined with an insurmountable workload and unreasonable expectations, it’s easy to see how a person would quickly become not just exhausted but disheartened.

Additionally, the rapid shift to working from home in response to the pandemic may be creating new issues for employees, as managers are still struggling with the adjustment to remote leadership, and exhibit new behaviours that were not previously observed.

Pitfalls remote leaders are falling into, that absolutely align with the burnout drivers listed above, include:

• Becoming invisible to employees when we all are working remotely
• Expecting employees to be “always-on” and immediately responsive to emails
• Using technology to monitor employee activities
• Over-reliance upon meetings, as a proxy for keeping tabs on productivity

The remedies for burnout take aim at these five contributing factors, and they start with the company’s leadership: revising policies will not resolve underlying drivers such as an absent leader, one who treats employees unfairly, or a poor communicator.

Disengagement 

Engaged employees bring their best selves to work, and are enthusiastic about and committed to their work and their employer. They relish playing an active role in the business and are willing to go the extra mile.

A disengaged employee is the polar opposite, and no longer cares about the work they do or the company they work for. At their worst, actively disengaged employees are miserable and spread dissent and unhappiness to others on the team.

Disengagement can be extraordinarily costly to a company, stemming from increased absenteeism and higher rates of leave, lower productivity and quality of work, and ultimately, a higher rate of employee turnover.

While burnout and disengagement are different things, they are often found together, and without a doubt, burnout can lead to disengagement, if an employee sees no forthcoming improvements to their situation.

Diagnosis

The most effective remedy is one that’s targeting the right issue. As they say, you don’t want to perform surgery with an axe.

The first task is taking a brave look within your organisation, and understanding how your people are doing. Are they exhausted, or do you have more serious, systemic problems that are leading to employee burnout, or worse, full disengagement?

These issues can be easily masked, and may not be evident at a glance. Depending upon the size of your organization, there are various steps you can take to better understand if exhaustion or employee burnout are impacting your team.

• Talk to people, and not just your direct reports. Schedule skip-level meetings or small group discussions to hear directly from front line employees.
• Check your HR records for unusual patterns, such as a higher than normal absences, or increases in employees on leave.
• Survey your employees. Without a doubt, this is the quickest and most accurate way to get a read on where the organisation stands. A well-constructed survey that guarantees employees full anonymity will enable you to gather frank feedback and provide a source of truth about the health of your company culture.

Recovery

Recovery will start when you identify core issues and act upon the information and findings to begin resolution and improvement. The process can be aided significantly with healthy doses of transparency and clear communication, such as:

• Share the findings with your team. In addition to building trust and credibility, being transparent in this way also creates shared context by defining the issues at hand, putting everyone on the same page. You may also find that sharing information in this way invites more feedback, motivating people to share more insights and feedback with leadership.
• Communicate which issues you’ll be addressing first, along with any related plans and timelines. Be sure to communicate progress and outcomes along the way, to keep building credibility and make it clear to all that actions are being taken based upon employee feedback. The old adage of “Tell ‘em what you’re going to tell ‘em; tell ‘em; tell ‘em what ya told ‘em” holds here. Repetition will make the message stick.
• Re-survey your team (or go back for another round of skip-level and round table meetings) to gauge the impact of your actions, and gather reaction and feedback on your efforts.

Your efforts to diagnose and resolve issues within your team can be aided by an employee engagement survey platform such as the one Alluxi offer to clients through our partnership with EngagementMultiplier.

“Belonging” – The top employee engagement trend for 2021 

It seems you can’t read an article about employee engagement without a reference to a sense of “belonging”, and for good reason. Defined as

“the feeling of security and support when there

is a sense of acceptance, inclusion, and identity

for a member of a certain group or place”

belonging is currently top of employees current needs for two key reasons

• the impact that working from home has had on many individuals, inculcating feelings of isolation and loneliness.
• the renewed focus on diversity and inclusion in the workplace, and

The underlying drivers that create a sense of belonging are not new, and actually drive an employee’s overall engagement with your business. What IS new is the emphasis being placed this year on the sense of belonging, and how that impacts an employee’s overall experience.

Together, they create a sense of belonging, which is crucially important in organisations that have been stressed by furloughs, lay-offs, and remote working.  You can read more about this new trend in Sarah Skerick’s article “Top Employee Engagement Trend for 2021: Belonging”

This is yet another instance where the Employee Engagement Benchmark Assessment can help your business. If you’ve not surveyed your team recently, this will help you understand at a glance what your employees value – and where the organisation is falling short.  This free survey, simple to set up, anonymous, and taking just 10 minutes to complete,  will show you where your company stands.  Get specific insights into unforeseen issues and prepare your teams for a strong recovery.

Your Next Steps to Greater Productivity in 2021

Looking ahead to 2021, Alluxi is here to offer you support through these times of change, bringing a scientific facts and figures approach to evolve your business and realise your goals. Alluxi provides an initial 60 minute Productivity to Profit Breakthrough Session to understand your unique business frustrations and uncover where your hidden potential lies, to boost productivity in your business. You’ll receive an e-scorecard to benchmark your business propensity for success and you’ll leave the call with clear guidance and action plan to address your key issues. 

The Alluxi 60 minute Breakthrough session, including the Alluxi Business Success Scorecard, will illuminate hidden opportunities to maximise your business potential. Book now for just £125 + VAT, or by email linda@alluxi.co.uk or call 07717 221368

The post THE LOOMING CULTURE CRISIS & EMPLOYEE BURNOUT appeared first on Alluxi Consulting.

As we reach the end of this turbulent year – it is a good time to reflect – what has worked well and what would you like to improve in 2021?

We’re all heading into the Christmas festivities hoping to relax a little, even if we can’t get to our favourite entertainment venues. To make sure you AND your team can switch off completely from the emails, social media and other work distractions take time out before Christmas, get a date in the diary with the whole team, and create an environment conducive to reflect on the trials and tribulations of 2020.   What’s worked, what hasn’t and how you can launch into the New Year with a refreshed outlook and renewed energy and drive. 

With all the changes and challenges presented by the pandemic you and your team may be feeling relieved to have made it to this point.  The new norms of working from home were abruptly thrown at us in March, leaving business owners scrambling into action to “pivot” their operating models, get staff up and running from whatever space was available to them in their homes – with technology issues that invariably arise when moving desks, let alone moving to a virtual office environment, adding to the stress and pressure for the employees too.

As a business owner you’re possibly taking stock of the financial fallout this may have inflicted on your operating reserves or debt situation.  This may be weighing heavily on your shoulders, leaving you worrying how long it’s going to take to get your finances back to pre-Covid conditions.  

My initial advice to business owners, when the first lockdown was imposed, provided solutions to normalise your staff’s new working conditions. The focus was to optimize efficiencies under extremely difficult conditions. Fundamentally they’re all relevant management tools worth introducing whether working remotely or not.  

A. Reassure the team, or at least be honest

Setting up regular communications and opportunities to review progress frequently, including keeping your staff updated with the facts

B. Getting priorities in order 

Focus on the critical marketing and revenue generating activities, making your processes leaner (I’ll refer back to this later in the blog).  

C. Find a common task management tool

This achieves a standardised tool, and maximise synchronized communications across the team, reducing the background “noise” of managing multiple chats.

D. Establish a Daily Routine

A clearly communicated routine will give everyone a clear focus, and sense of purpose which, if reviewed regularly, should improve their connectivity, productivity and motivation.

E. Encouraging regular breaks 

Even when working from home, make sure the team take regular breaks away from their computer screens to rest the eyes, and refresh the mind.

F. Consider parental responsibilities

Parents working at home may really appreciate some flexibility and redistribution of the work load and activities, as many employees battled with home learning with young children. 

Check out the Six Lockdown Survival Guidelines for SME’s to read more about applying these in your own business.

BOOSTING EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE WITH GREATER ENGAGEMENT

Since that first lockdown, the real impact of working from home manifesting in both positives and negatives has changed the working landscape irrevocably.  Since the country went back into a second national lockdown and many businesses returned to (or continued with) remote working  you may have really begun to feel the longer term impacts, and the more intangible costs to your business, which I discussed in some depth in The Covid Productivity Tax.  The longer term effects on team morale really took its toll resulting in  low staff engagement.

So as we near the end of this rather traumatic year, I’d like to offer some further reflections from the Alluxi toolbox, with a roundup of what to focus on in your own year-end review.  Eliminate the negative, consolidate and embed the positive in new behaviours – and with your team, create your blueprint for success into 2021.

From a tactical perspective, in leading staff through the seismic changes they’ve had to endure, my blog series the Top 5 Lockdown challenges & How to turn them into opportunities presented a suite of survey tools you can use to overcome the key challenges many business leaders have battled with employee engagement.

The Alluxi Working from Home & Winning Analysis

– designed to understand how your team is adapting to working from home and what, if any, adjustments are needed to help employees stay connected and productive

The Alluxi Leadership Perception Gap Evaluation

– to bridge the differences between leaders and employers perceptions of their leaders effectiveness

The Alluxi Emerging Stronger Analysis

– to consolidate and reap the benefits from any new opportunities, innovations and processes the team has developed, to make the organisation more effective

The Alluxi Kickstarting Innovation Analysis

– to engage your employees in a new and positive way, creating a structure and framework for advancing the ideas that power future growth.  

To really get the juices flowing when reflecting on opportunities to improve, it’s imperative your team are tuned into your business objectives. Make sure they all have a full understanding of how their role contributes to your business goals. Make sure they’re fully committed AND motivated, to work as a team.

If they’re not engaged, your culture becomes fragmented and dysfunctional, costing you time and money.  As an Engagement Multiplier Partner, Alluxi can give you access to a powerful suite of surveys. I can provide in-depth analysis and direction, to pinpoint where there may be dis-engagement in your business, and bring solutions to rectify it.

The first benchmark assessment survey is completely free, easy to set up and provides an in-depth report to build future initiatives to re-engage your team.  Staff engagement is the first step in moving forward for success.

POWERING UP PRODUCTIVITY: BACK TO BASICS

Undoubtedly your operating models would have been thrown into disarray with staff relocating to home working, and business owners having to re-design the pieces of the jigsaw ensuring the customer experience, quality of work and internal standards were not compromised.

You might feel like you’re still limping along in a very fragile & precarious state, not really sure what horrors are bubbling under the surface, having had no time to really stress-test the robustness of your “new norms”.

To power up your productivity, I strongly recommend getting your team round the virtual table, and get back to basics – reviewing the processes, work flows and procedures in the business.  The principles of LEAN provide a perfect framework to guide you through this review, and are described in detail in my series of blogs Get Lean After Lockdown.

PAUSE FOR THOUGHT

On a personal level, on reflection of the experiences many of my clients have been through this year, I have come through the pandemic with some renewed perspectives.  I feel this experience has made many business owners recognise that operating reserves is critical to mitigate against the unforeseeable.  Just because interest rates are low, doesn’t mean it’s not worth keeping at least 3-6 months of operating costs tucked away for these world calamities.    Alluxi’s year end was literally within a week of the first lockdown, and we had to take the hard decision to leave a good percentage of the previous year’s hard earned profits in the business, to ensure we could meet our financial commitments.  

I have taken the opportunity, whilst I’ve been rather more time rich than I would have liked, to take a fundamental look at the Alluxi product offerings, and marketing approach.  This has resulted in evolving my services into exciting new packages, bringing greater value to my clients, that I’ll be launching next year.  I’ll also be offering a series of taster workshops starting in January 2021.  So for Alluxi, I’m relieved to say, there is very much a silver lining beginning to shine behind the dark clouds of 2020. 

The post HOW HAVE YOUR TEAM PERFORMED UNDER PRESSURE THIS YEAR? appeared first on Alluxi Consulting.

As regular followers will testify,  I’m on a crusade to highlight how engaging your staff is key to unlocking greater productivity and profitability in your business.

In my previous series of posts shining a light on the Great British Productivity Swindle, I showed how identifying your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and setting up a Management Control System (MCS) is the crucial foundation to turn up the dial on your business productivity. The next key step is to ensure you are training your managers to give your employees clearer expectations and stronger, more meaningful performance appraisals. This will enable everyone to work more effectively together in a way that is truly aligned with your overall business goals.

As a business consultant and Engagement Multiplier Partner, I am privileged to see behind-the-scenes in a range of different businesses. I’ve seen first-hand how engaged organisations are much easier (and more pleasant) to run.  Value wise, engaged organisations show improved employee retention, lower absenteeism, better quality of work and productivity.  Together with findings from other Engagement Multiplier users, we see how a greater sense of ownership results in

– fewer sick days

– a 21% increased efficiency 

– increased retention of staff with an average of 87% less turnover

The best performing companies are proven to have highly engaged employees.  According to research by The Temkin Group 82% of companies with strong financial results are “highly” or “moderately” engaged, and are 4.6 times more likely to feel empowered to perform their best work .

And happier, more loyal and satisfied staff has a ripple effect, making it easier to attract talented new candidates to expand your team, and happier customers too.  All of this results in a better bottom line – with engaged businesses becoming on average 22% more profitable.

ADD £££’s to your bottom line boosting staff engagement!

Even with a team of just 10 people, you could be throwing up to £140,000 of your current wages bill down the drain (based on each person being on the UK average salary of £36,000 including employers costs). Imagine if you could flip that profit drain around by maximising the output you get from each person and generate a better return from every member of your team. Where do you start?

4 Big Issues Business Leaders Face Right Now

Before we get going with the solutions, it is useful to really understand the reasons why staff may be unengaged and unproductive. Many business owners have few, if any, productivity measures on their dashboards, and are oblivious how unproductive their staff actually are.  Some of the surveys I’ve referred to in the past show 89% of employees admit to wasting time at work, with most of those suggesting they actually only use 60% or less of their available paid time on effective work.  This means that 2 of their 5 paid days are effectively unproductive. 

According to a Scoro survey during 2019, office workers said their number one time waster is too many meetings – and that’s before the pandemic forced many employees to work from home; their only contact with other team members and managers is now via Zoom or Teams etc.  

There are a number of small quick wins that could be achieved, such as addressing the effectiveness and number of necessary participants in meetings. This would free up time for your teams to do more of the revenue generating work.  This, however, is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to improving productivity. There are four more fundamental changes that a business could yield significant productivity gains from which I will outline here, with a particular focus on how the latest national lockdown could be impacting your business.

“We can’t control our circumstances, but we can control how we respond”

People are the foundation of a productive business, and the current pandemic lockdowns are bringing additional problems to the surface.  Mental health and wellbeing in staff working from home is being impacted, and as we’ve seen above, if it isn’t already this could directly hit your bottom line.

ISSUE 1 : Concern about remote team performance?

The Symptoms

– nagging concerns about remote worker productivity

– a decline in communication & connection between people and

– the erosion of your normal culture

In my last blog, looking at the Covid Productivity Tax, I talked about some of the challenges businesses have been facing over the last few months with teams being forced to work remotely.  Employees are feeling the effect of this isolation.  It’s impacting motivation, communication and collaboration.  Staff are feeling lonely and finding it hard to define and divide the work vs home boundaries.

Even managers are beginning to have trust issues.  Recent Harvard Business School research shows that managers who cannot ‘see’ their direct reports struggle to trust that their employees are indeed working, which adds to the employee engagement issues.

People, Structure & Process

From a process perspective we’re in a  world where communication needs to be much more efficient, and more multi-channel.  There is a notable lack of connectivity and lack of structure in the way people are collaborating and being managed, which needs to be rethought in the light of remote working. 

Similarly, structurally the shift to remote working is amplifying many challenges around decision making, bringing people together and upheavals around workflow.  Business leaders have to look at their governance, and simplify it drastically to operate in a new remote-working or hybrid working model.

Taking data from countries around the world who have been working remotely for a while longer than the UK, and adding to the initial reactions emerging in this second lockdown – the principal message is that motivation is taking a nose dive.  The “home vs work life balance” challenge is becoming more prevalent, with the burnout mentioned earlier becoming a reality, and anxiety related to the pandemic is deepening.  

The Solution: Alluxi ‘Working from Home & Winning’ Analysis

We know this is an extremely trying time for business owners, especially those making the rapid adjustment to remote teams, even as they respond to difficult conditions. The recently introduced “Working From Home and Winning” survey helps you quickly understand how your team is adapting to working from home, and what adjustments need to be made to help employees stay connected and productive.  By using the survey you can quickly assess your staffs current mindset and take progressive action to strengthen your team now, and for the future, in the three key foundation themes of connection, productivity and performance.

ISSUE 2 : Evolving Leadership Styles

The Symptoms: 

– concerns that your managers may not be equipped to lead through today’s uncertainty and rate of change

– the company needs to upskill its leadership group

– some leaders are struggling

Old leadership styles in this new world just don’t cut it. Leaders are having to change their approach with employees who are no longer a captured audience in the confines of their workplace. The trust issues mentioned earlier exist because mechanisms are not yet in place in most businesses to measure and manage remotely.

Whereas previously a manager could rely on their gut feel, perception, hearsay and office banter for knowing how business was going, no longer works with teams working from home.  They are now blind to the day to day minutiae they have relied on to keep their finger on the pulse.  This new situation requires a more personal approach, supported with relevant facts and figures.  

McKinsey’s recent report “Fostering Employee productivity and morale through COVID-19” (June 2020),  identifies three areas of leadership that need to be ramped up, if employee engagement is to be improved and be sustainable.  Leaders are going to have to refresh their styles and traits away from a command and control emphasis, and become more attuned to their team’s wavelengths and hone their listening skills.  Partner, Tom Welchman, highlights the workforce challenges business owners need to embrace to drive productivity, in their role of leader.

Empathy

Empathy may not be the first word which comes to mind when describing strong leaders, but in the current climate creating and sustaining a caring culture is perhaps more important than ever. Employees need leaders to lead from the front line rather than micromanage from afar.

Creating a Team of Teams

Leaders need to think about how they can change structures to work more effectively, and more quickly in response to some challenges that we’re facing.  The classic agile approach of the two-pizza rule, between 7 and 9 people in small teams is a proven method which will still work through the new communication methods on video conferencing.

Effective Communications

Increased productivity requires effective communications – a two way dialogue, not a monologue.  Business leaders may be used to pushing out information in a one way process, but now need to engage in a more personalised, two way channel of talking AND listening.  Keeping things short, simple, focusing on the facts, encouraging dialogue and making sure employees hear the truth first hand, is possibly needed now more than ever.  

“91% of employees said they’d feel more comfortable working

from home if their leader set clear expectations for

responsiveness and communication”

(Hired Inc. 2020)

Welchman summarises with a far reaching vision that “future generations are putting more and more importance on purpose and how organizations are responding. And if there’s anything we’re learning about this crisis, it’s that the legacy of actions taken today will really be in people’s minds for years to come”

The Solution: Alluxi ‘Leadership Perception Gap’ Evaluation

The power of strong, effective leadership is an undeniable contributor to an organisation’s success. Employee confidence in their leaders is a crucial factor in determining whether or not leadership is effective. All too often, company executives and employees have differing perceptions of the leadership team’s effectiveness. We call this The Leadership Perception Gap and bridging it is one of the surest ways a leadership team can improve the overall performance of the business. The following questions will enable you to determine whether or not Leadership Perception Gaps exist within your company, and the associated Leadership Perception Gap Success Guide will help you take immediate action to close the gaps you find.

ISSUE 3 : Empowering Teams to Handle the current Rate Of Change

The Symptoms:

– Difficulty making change stick

– Problems with alignment due to rapid shifts in the business

– Lack of visibility into new practices, processes and procedures the team has developed

This year has brought about massive transformation for many businesses. Covid may have helped accelerate some changes that were already being planned or talked about. Some changes may therefore be welcome – as the pandemic has forced many of us to look at new ways of working and get smarter at what we do.  However other changes may have been forced and feel more like temporary solutions while awaiting a return to greater freedom and changes in the market.

The move from work place to home, has also exacerbated and complicated matters when having to introduce changes in practices and processes.  Achieving a behaviour change working face to face with people, with the luxury of being able to interact with them is difficult enough, but to ask people to understand and implement changes remotely adds to the stress and anxiety for employees.  The sharing and collaboration when change happens in the work place is suppressed when working home alone.  It requires you to re-empower your staff – give them new permissions in ways of handling the changes they’re having to adapt to.  This adds to the pressure on the leaders and managers too.

The Solution:  Alluxi ‘Emerging Stronger’ Analysis

Examine how your team has been impacted by change and what innovations it has inspired using our EM Emerging Stronger tool.  Delve into what your organisation has learned since the onset of the pandemic, and identify: 

– New opportunities the employees see from their vantage point 

– New innovations and processes the team has developed

– Opportunities to make the organisation more efficient 

ISSUE 4 : Employee Fatigue and Slowing Innovation

The Symptoms: 

– Engagement Scores declining

– Employees not coming forward with ideas as they have previously

– Progress stalling across the organisation

– Teams losing energy

Frustrating Technology

A poll carried out by Censuswide in May 2020 showed that “Only 6% of IT Leaders believe their organisation is set up to enable maximum productivity from employees at the moment – down from the 11% who took this view pre-lockdown”.  The survey was carried out with 1000 employees as well as 750 IT & HR leaders from across large organisations.

Two thirds (66%) of the IT decision makers believe staff efficiency is currently restricted by the limitations of their IT systems.  Over half (56%) of the employees surveyed agree that serious change still needs to happen with their tech tools, for them to be more productive.  

What might surprise you is in February 36% of staff claimed that greater financial rewards were key to making them more efficient in their role, yet post lockdown this dropped to just 25%, with employees more likely to cite technology as the significant catalyst for greater productivity.    Clearly the shift to motivating and engaging staff is not money but a need for better tools to do their job.

Predictably staff frustration with workplace technology has also increased during lockdown.  Pre lockdown, one fifth (22%) of staff blamed current workplace technology for inhibiting productivity.  This figure increased to 28% by May 2020, flagging that their tech tools aren’t user friendly or simple to use.

Beyond the frustrations with the lack of technology, research has uncovered leadership concerns that enabling staff to work flexibly – whether in the office, working remotely, or even on the move – can have a negative impact.

Both HR & IT leaders believe flexible work is increasing the risk of an “always-on” culture.  Staff feel obliged to be available beyond their normal working hours, which will lead to burn out.  Those same leaders agree that improving employee engagement is key to boosting employee productivity. 

The Solution: Alluxi ‘Kickstarting Innovation’ Analysis

The whole point of having an engaged organisation is what you can do with it! The Alluxi Kickstarting Innovation Analysis will engage your employees in a new and positive way. Your leaders will be able to quickly assess and improve their innovation process with the Engagement Multiplier tool, creating structure and framework for advancing the ideas that power future growth. The message to employees is powerful – their ideas matter, and leadership wants to hear them.

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE ALLUXI SOLUTIONS TO ENERGISE EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT & PRODUCTIVITY

Improve your team’s productivity with the Alluxi Business Improvement Toolkit

“What gets measured improves ….

What gets measured and reported improves exponentially”

Alluxi offers a 60 minute Productivity to Profit Breakthrough session to understand your unique business frustrations and uncover where your hidden potential lies to boost productivity in your business. You’ll leave the call with clear guidance on how to address your key issues  If you would then like to delve deeper and explore the issues outlined above in greater detail:

– managing remote team

– evolving leadership styles

– supporting your team to emerge stronger and manage the rate of change

– kickstart innovation

We can design a Launchpad Workshop giving you a bespoke framework to optimise productivity and maximise the profitability of your business.  This half-day session, structured around your key challenges, will introduce you to the Alluxi concepts, and how to apply them to your own needs, tailored to your business. It also includes a benchmark engagement survey to assess the current health of your teams engagement levels, and incorporate the findings into future plans.

As the name suggests, this workshop provides a taster of what you can expect from the full suite of Alluxi Business Programmes, accelerate your Escape Velocity and enable you to reach a higher orbit in your business – lift you out of the day-to-day operations to the higher-level strategic control room of your business.

The post HOW MUCH IS LOW STAFF ENGAGEMENT COSTING YOU? appeared first on Alluxi Consulting.

3 Solutions to boost your team’s motivation and engagement in the “new norm”

THE EUPHORIA?

A recent LinkedIn chat with one of my connections, raised the question whether I’d heard the expression “Covid Productivity Tax”.  I pinged back a response saying I’d never heard of it, but it roused my curiosity and I started to research the concept. 

When we first entered the lockdown situation in early 2020, and business leaders were forced to find ways to continue trading remotely, there was a fizz of speculation as to how the “new way of working” would change the face of business and commerce for ever; how great it was to work from home, find work life balance, save hours of commuting on trains or buses.  This initial excitement and positivity was fueled by a couple of months of fantastic sunny weather.

The public were given “permission” to leave the house for up to one hour a day to exercise, which saw a massive upsurge in walkers, cyclists and runners across the country.  In our house, we took great delight in pushing the boundaries and enjoying a lot more than our allotted 60 minutes out in the fresh air and sunshine.  

THE UPSURGE

Encouragingly, the fitness arena experienced a sellout of home gym & exercise equipment, dumbbells, static bikes and treadmills.  Other industries that experienced a massive surge in sales, provoked by the lockdown, included the electronics market which practically ran out of laptops & VoIP phones, as companies scrambled to get teams up and running from home.

The clothing industry enjoyed a spike in demand for leisure and comfort wear as we realized we wouldn’t have to get suited and booted to go to the office, but could roll out bed half an hour before sitting down in comfy joggers and sweatshirts.   Supermarkets were also hard pushed to recruit sufficient drivers to manage the overnight growth in their home delivery services. 

Environmentalists were having a field day demonstrating that, Heh!, we can live without cars, and indeed the air quality improved within weeks of the country being shut down.  Bird song could be heard again, and the roads were eerily, but pleasantly quiet.

And so, the WFH (Working from home) economy was born ……………

STORM CLOUDS GATHERING

The storm clouds, however, are gathering on the horizon as, more than six months into the pandemic, the perceived initial benefits the working population enjoyed, combined with the financial support from the government, that business owners have relied upon, are beginning to dwindle.

Reality is looming and, much like the newly emerging symptoms of “Long Covid”, the long term impact of the WFH concept is starting to wear thin.  Cracks are appearing on the surface of the shiny new world we were envisaging.

A plethora of surveys and research has started to emerge, demonstrating how the strain of working remotely is having a negative impact on employee wellbeing.  A recent study from Intuo has highlighted that:

• 8% of employees are struggling with motivation level
• 17% of people surveyed are finding it challenging to communicate and collaborate effectively
• 19% of workers are feeling lonely and isolated
• 22% of remote workers finding it hard to create those necessary boundaries that enable us to keep our work and home lives separate. 

The Bank of England’s chief economist Andy Haldane, normally makes regular visits around the country, enjoying chance conversations with the public on his travels.  He commented that “not having to commute generally leaves workers happier, but there’s a darker side to prolonged lockdown”.  Mr. Haldane recognises he’s suffering from a growing disconnection with the people around him, and working from home has probably reduced his own capacity for creative thought.

A recent special report on hybrid working, from Management Today, does hint that generally, employers find their staff are more productive now than they were last year, but cite some worrying signs.

The increase in general happiness coincides unsurprisingly with increased levels of anxiety and depression. The increase in happiness is not universal, and women have seen a lower increase in happiness compared to men.  Black respondents were the least likely to feel empowered, and black males in particular feel less trusted, less happy and enjoy work less, than their peers.  The 19-24 age group, have the lowest increase in happiness, possibly due to the lack of social connection, and perceived sense of a loss of development opportunities.

COMMON CONCERNS LEADERS CITE ABOUT THEIR REMOTE TEAMS

So, all the above raises the question whether WFH is the key to greater productivity, or a recipe for disaster?  Headlines about the topic run the gamut, and for good reason: whether or not a firms’ employees are productive at home has a lot to do with the work they do, their own individual circumstances and countless other variables.  My blog Six Lockdown Survival Guidelines for SME’s provided key guidelines to reduce possible loss in productivity, and anxiety in employees having to juggle their own work with space in the home, kids needing home schooling and the likelihood of not being able to switch off from work at their normal end of day time. 

“Research shows that managers who cannot ‘see’ their direct reports

sometimes struggle to trust that their employees are indeed working”

– HBR “Remote Managers are having trust issues” July 2020

In the light of 6 months experience of employers managing their remote teams, the prevalence of the remote work is raising new issues for leaders.  The most common concerns leaders currently have, about employees working from home are: 

• Employees are less productive, encounter distractions at home, don’t manage their time well and struggle to prioritise work correctly
• Communications are fragmented and people are left out of the loop
• Spontaneity is lost.  Great ideas happen at the watercooler and important information is exchanged in chance meetings or when people stop by each other’s desks.
• Connection between the company and employees is weakening. Company culture is being eroded, relationships are suffering, and on-boarding new employees into the team is difficult.

Deloitte’s Analysis “Working During Lockdown, The Impact of COVID-19 on productivity and wellbeing, surveyed 1,321 UK workers and found that 38% of workers say lockdown has had a negative impact on their wellbeing.  When asked what they miss about their usual workplace when working from home, 45% of respondents like the social interaction, 31% feel it’s more collaborative, and 25% feel they can network more easily.

THE SOLUTIONS

Many of these issues are related, for example- improving communications between team members can put projects back on track and fuel spontaneity.  To build a strong foundation for your remote teams, we need to focus on three key elements – productivity, communication and connection. 

1.  Maintaining Productivity

The secret to productivity, as anyone that’s read many of my previous articles will know, is providing your team with structure that provides routine and focus.  It will provide the flexibility needed to make working from home really work for both your business and it’s employees.  The 3 key steps to enabling productivity and setting remote teams for success are

Clear understanding of roles and responsibilities – revisit roles and responsibilities with remote team members, to identify anything that’s changed, and ensure leaders and teams are on the same page.

Establish SMART goals – to help employees prioritise work correctly and stay focused

Create Structure that keeps teams focused and on track – with short, intentional meetings, that start and end the week, AND bookend the day to ensure everyone switches off and leaves their ‘virtual’ office.

2. Keep Communications Flowing

The flow of essential information throughout the workplace is the lifeblood of our organisations.  Just as our circulatory systems keep us hydrated, oxygenated and protected on a cellular level, the healthy flow of information  within a company carries crucial information from the heart of the business to its outermost reaches. Note, the emphasis on “healthy flow of information.” If the lines of communication are compromised, the downstream impact can be disastrous. 

Symptoms of poor communication are threefold, namely

• Scope creep where deliverables or new requirements begin to add additional pressures.
• Silos: begin to form when teams are cut off or isolated from the rest of the organisation.  Teams unable, or unwilling, to share information with peers are inefficient and can damage culture.
• Conspiracy theories: can also start to circulate as people start to make up what they don’t know, and the lack of clear communications from leaders creates an ideal environment for rumour and speculation.  

3. Connection & Culture

The word “connection” describes how well employees understand what’s going on with the business – and how much they care. In short, connection can be described as a “one team, one goal” mindset, characterised by employees who understand the company’s business, are aligned around the goals, and work cooperatively as a unified team. It’s useful to think of connection and culture together, simply because one can’t build a culture without first developing a connected team.   Ultimately, culture is expressed through what is done, not what is said.

To help your leaders and employees look beyond the job description when it comes to setting goals that motivate your team and deliver value to your stakeholders, here are three main things that need to be communicated loud and clear to everyone in the business.

Quarterly Business Reviews & Goal Setting: Creating transparency and sharing the ‘big picture’ across the team with a quarterly business review will immediately increase your employees’ connectivity by reinforcing their contributions to the company’s stated goals and its overall success. 

Measure Outcomes, Not Inputs: Imagine an inbound call centre that traditionally measures the volume of calls reps handle hourly and daily. What would happen if the company instead started to measure time to answer and customer satisfaction? The former (volume of calls) measures work done, versus providing an aspirational target. Increasing speed to answer and customer satisfaction encourage the behaviours required for success, and provide positive targets for the team. 

Purpose: The “purpose” in an organisation is normally written for the benefit of the owners, the shareholders or the customers. And yet there is only one audience for whom it’s actually critically important: The employees. An Engaged Purpose is written for the support and involvement of your employees, and will give them a “why” for showing up every day. 

“You may have devised the best purpose in the history of humankind,

but if it is locked up in an ivory tower and not making it to the front line,

you are hampering your organisation’s ability to perform at its full potential.”

– Stefan Wissenbach, Founder & CEO of Engagement Multiplier

THE FUTURE

Despite the ongoing wellbeing issues, and the culture shock waves that most businesses are experiencing right now, it’s looking increasingly likely that WFH is here to stay.

New research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) reveals employers expect that the proportion of their staff regularly working from home once the crisis is over, will leap to 37% compared to 18% before the pandemic.  Employers also think the proportion of staff who work permanently from home will rise to 22% post-pandemic compared to 9% before lockdown.

Tellingly, a survey of 1,046 employers showed that they believe people working from home are as productive as other workers, with over a quarter (28%) believing the rise in homeworking has increased employee productivity or efficiency, compared to 28% of organisations that report the opposite. Just over a third, some 37% thought there had been no effect on productivity or efficiency.

The employees themselves, from the responses given in the Deloitte survey, 55% of workers believe that their colleagues are just as, if not more, productive now than before lockdown.  After lockdown, 61% of desk-based workers would prefer to work from home more often.

However, Vicky Pryce (Chief Economic Adviser at the Centre for Economics and Business Research CEBR), remains sceptical about the tangible productivity benefits of home-working. “Anecdotally, home-working is unlikely to be a long-term boost as upskilling opportunities that would normally happen, won’t,” she suggests. However, Pryce is adamant that the greater flexibility engendered by homeworking produces a happier workforce.  

The debate is likely to continue for a while yet!

The post THE COVID PRODUCTIVITY TAX – Reduce the impact on your business appeared first on Alluxi Consulting.

Are your manual processes a barrier towards greater productivity?  Do you engage and empower your teams to strip away waste & inefficiency?  Do your staff embrace continuous improvement as the norm?

My 5 blog series for business owners and leaders, will focus your efforts to emerge renewed and reenergized after lockdown

Principle 5 – Continuous Improvement is a Culture, not a Department

The last 4 blogs in this series discussed how the principles of LEAN can be applied to any business. The previous four principles have provided you with a framework of how to 

• Define and review your current lean value stream
• Eliminate waste, whether that’s time, energy, materials, or costs, from your existing processes
• Create a flow of work through the business based on client or consumer demand
• Ensure that every step of the process is designed to achieve first time quality 

The final principal of LEAN is to build on all of the above to nurture and sustain a culture of continuous improvement.  That is engaging and empowering every member of your team, to adopt a culture of improving their work processes in small incremental steps, following the Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle of a robust management system.

If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it!

I’ve often extolled the virtues of the phrase “if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it”.  In continuous improvement behaviour, the small problems and points of potential waste in the way people work, is not immediately obvious let alone measurable.  Your teams need to be encouraged to take the initiative of coming forward with ideas and suggestions as to where these tiny, seemingly insignificant, imperfections may be occurring in the everyday minutae of their work.  This takes some training and practice as well as regular reviews and team chats to build their confidence in coming forward.

Kaizen

Toyota employed the idea of Kaizen, the everyday improvement in all departments and areas of the organisation, to encourage all the staff in the cause of fixing problems, and raising standards of excellence.  Those businesses that make significant training investments to equip and empower the front line workers with the skills and tools they need to remove waste, inefficiencies and drive improvement, are significantly more successful when applying these LEAN concepts.

However, the improvements must be tangible and based on hard data gathered over a period of time, not just based on gut feel or perception.  This brings us round to the point of measuring in order to manage the performance and quality.  This is where the simple PDCA cycle of Plan, Do, Check, Act (check out the Deming or Shewhart cycle) can be applied on the front line.  Once the inefficiency or problem has been identified this cycle can then be used to determine how to reduce or eliminate it.  

PLAN

The first step is to establish how the process, or behaviour needs, to change to achieve the result needed, ie. how will the work be done differently to achieve first time quality or reduce the time or defect?  Depending on the root cause and complexity of the problem, this might involve a team brainstorming session, or may be as simple as the employee discussing possible solutions with their manager and given the go ahead to test these.  At this stage it needs to be agreed what parameters or information will be gathered to measure how successful the change is, in reducing the problem.

DO

Go ahead and implement the options for potential solutions in the work place.  During this step the employee needs to record and take the measurements agreed in the Planning stage.  This may be the time taken to complete a step of the process, the number of rejects or complaints that arise compared to previously, over maybe a day or a week depending on the frequency or number of occasions the process has to be carried out to gather enough representative information.

CHECK

Analyse the date and the results gathered from the DO phase and evaluate against your goals or targets of expected/desired outcomes.  Using charts or graphs is sometimes easier to immediately visualize the impact (or not) on improving or reducing the problem. You can then start to see which changes work better than others, and see if they can be further refined to really reach the optimum working process.

ACT

This final stage to Act, or Adjust, is where the process is improved.  The data gathered from the Do and Check phases help identify issues with this process.  These may include knock-on problems, non-conformities with the system or work flow, opportunities for improvement, inefficiencies or other issues that results in poor quality, defects, rejects or complaints. 

At the point of taking action or adjusting the workers behaviour, root causes can be further exposed and eliminated by modifying the process.  The end of the ACT stage is when the process has better instructions, higher standards or increased goals.

Planning for the next cycle can proceed with the improved results forming a new base line ie. your now improved process becomes the norm, and future improvements would be measured against this – not the previous base using the old methods.

It is this incremental shift in the departments base performance measure that defines continuous improvement – gradually spiraling towards an ever increasing perfection – although it’s arguable that in a shifting market place, and new technologies being used, true perfection would ever truly be achieved. 

Lean companies give their employees total authority to initiate change at their respective level of responsibility. The PDCA Cycle depends on the initiatives being carried out in a disciplined way which maintains the employees accountability at all times.  However, with greater clarity and transparency for the team member to demonstrate how their ideas have been instrumental in improving the results of their area, the business owner will be better placed to reward their efforts and gain greater loyalty and employee engagement amongst their teams.

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Are your manual processes a barrier towards greater productivity?  Do you engage and empower your teams to strip away waste & inefficiency?  Do your staff embrace continuous improvement as the norm?

My 5 blog series for business owners and leaders, will focus your efforts to emerge renewed and reenergized after lockdown

Principle 4 – Jidoka, First Time Quality

Have you dipped into the detail of how your staff are delivering the product or service you provide to your customers? Do your business systems include a log of the number of complaints and reasons why the client is unhappy?  These are key indicators that every business should be monitoring regularly to achieve maximum productivity from the hours and materials invested in delivering first class service or top quality products, first time, and every time.

The Japanese refer to this as Jidoka – First Time Quality – building in quality as an intrinsic element of production, or service delivery, solving problems in real time, and as close to the source as possible.  The main goal of Jidoka is to be free of defects.  The idea originated from an automated loom, developed by Sakichi Toyoda, of Toyoda Loom works, which later became Toyota.  This new mechanism automatically stopped the loom working when a single thread broke, thereby preventing any faults or flaws in the fabric, and ensuring a perfect weave.

Introducing lean principles into your own workplace will empower your teams to stop the production, or alert management to a point in the service delivery which doesn’t deliver the perfect customer experience.  In Japan this is done by pulling a cord, the Andon, to activate a visual and audio alarm to alert a supervisor or support personnel to change or solve the issue so it cannot reoccur in the future. Safety is managed hand in hand with quality in this respect, if doing the work appears to be unsafe or represents a hazard to the workers.

Get it Right First Time

Getting things right first time is ultimately more efficient, and Jidoka is the main reason why companies practicing these Lean principles will be more successful at improving quality.  Jidoka is one of two pillars of the original Toyota Production System, the other being the Just in Time principal (JIT).  This quality control process applies four key steps

1. Detect the abnormality or defect
2. Stop the work/process
3. Fix or correct the immediate condition
4. Investigate the root cause and install a countermeasure

In a large percentage of businesses the quality control often only reaches step 3, where an interim correction or adjustment is made, but the temporary “sticking plaster” fix is consequently absorbed into the work flow; it becomes the norm, adds a small and probably invisible inefficiency of extra work into the process, without actually resolving the root cause. 

A Multitude of Small Hidden Inefficiencies

However, when this quick fix approach is replicated dozens of times through the business, these small inefficiencies build to a point where productivity suffers dearly, and the managers find it difficult to unravel what the root cause problem was in the first place.  This is when you might find customer complaints growing, or product returns increasing, costing you time and money to rectify or replace.

Correcting this, reviewing the whole work flow and process steps then becomes an expensive and time consuming exercise to clean up.   Investigating the root cause and installing a once and for all countermeasure solution is the key to achieve first time quality, every time.  Businesses must develop their quality performance indicators around each defect or abnormality, to monitor whether the root cause has been detected, and check the countermeasures implemented are being effective.  

In next weeks final blog of the Lean Principles for SME’s, I’ll be concluding with Continuous Improvement – empowering your entire team to improve their work processes one step at a time using the simple cycle of Plan, Do, Check, Act.  

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Are your manual processes a barrier towards greater productivity?  Do you engage and empower your teams to strip away waste & inefficiency?  Do your staff embrace continuous improvement as the norm?

My 5 blog series for business owners and leaders, will focus your efforts to emerge renewed and reenergized after lockdown

Principle 3 – Demand Regulated Flow

On the 1^st December 1913, Henry Ford set up the first moving assembly line for the mass production of an entire automobile.  His novel idea reduced the build time of his cars by over 80%, from more than 12 hours to just 2½.  This was the most significant piece of Ford’s efficiency crusade, but it’s limitations became apparent as the demand grew for more variety.  The “any colour you like so long as it’s black” phrase we now associate with Henry Ford, served well, until the changing desires of the customer started asking for something other than a Ford Model T in black livery.  

This is where Toyota took Ford’s process a step further. They made changes to their manufacturing process allowing for more variation in the workflow, without returning to inefficiencies.  They made technical changes, quizzed and challenged the progression though the work flow, and strengthened communication between different process teams. 

Ford knew the importance of not creating large amounts of surplus stocks and inventory. He managed his supply chain to have enough materials to hand, to manufacture the cars based on demand.  This had to be balanced to smooth out the delivery service so that cars consistently arrived on time for the customer.

Fords initiatives meant striking the best deals with suppliers, managing inventory so as not to tie up cash on the shelves, and making improvements on the front line that led to the reduction of waste.  You can read more about eliminating waste in my blog Click Here.

Just In Time Delivery

In the 21^st Century, we are surrounded by the benefits of adopting this LEAN just-in-time flow delivery principle.  This states that all activity must be triggered by demand.  You don’t “push” materials into the flow but wait for a demand trigger to “pull” product or service delivery along.

The command to produce is initiated by the customer, with their order moving in the opposite direction to the normal flow of production or delivery.    For example, you can walk into a MacDonald’s restaurant, and have your meal ordered, paid for, cooked and packaged within minutes of arriving at the counter.  Customers perceive a good quality service when they get their product when they ask for it.  

Demand forecasting is crucial in this principal. Failing to forecast accurately can massively affect your cash flow and profits.  MacDonald’s have developed their own, very sophisticated forecast application.  Their point-of-sale data is generated on a daily basis at item level, the product list, stock levels, inventory and shipments at the distribution centre.

They have achieved 100% outsourced suppliers, don’t own any factories, or distribution centres, and work with just 16 major suppliers.   MacDonald’s most important key performance indicator (KPI) is ‘no item may ever be out of stock’.  To achieve this they work to strict supply chain planning principles. 

1.  Expectations have to be crystal clear

Get talking to your supplier(s) so they can get to know your business and how they can better serve you.  The relationship will work so much better if you describe your needs and supply requirements from the outset.  Then regularly communicate with your suppliers to ensure they keep up with your business evolution.

2.  Continuously report & evaluate your data

Management control systems are the DNA of every business,  to providing leaders and managers alike, with key information (KPI’s) on time, so you can take informed decisions on where problems exist, how big an issue they are and what are the priorities needing attention at any point in time.

3.  Take the marketing plan into consideration

Where local or promotional activities may need to be factored in, which may affect the forecast.  There’s no point promoting or making special offers in your marketing and social media if operationally you can’t deliver and your customers are going to be disappointed.  Can you imagine what would happen if MacDonalds ran out of Happy Meal boxes or free toys?

4.  Compare the forecast to the actuals regularly

To monitor and measure the accuracy of the forecasting, to tweak and fine tune, and take corrective measures for continuous improvement is essential in achieving a just in time delivery.  The devil’s in the detail, and if the teams or supervisors on the front line take their eyes off the ball, then you’ll be in danger of a stock out situation and losing money. 

MacDonald’s has consistently climbed up the Gartner supply chain Top 25 over recent years, now in the top 5 Supply Chain Masters for 2019.  They manage to finely balance new product growth and the resulting complexity in their supply chain planning, management and execution.

How to apply this in your small business

How will this help you? In a smaller, younger company than MacDonalds?  Well the same principles apply.  The first step is to gather as much historical data you can from your previous trading figures.  You may need to get this by product or service channel, or for each variation of your offerings.

This will provide you with a base line to forecast future demand with.  Take your marketing and promotional activity into consideration to estimate by how much you can increase your sales.  With a firm historical base to measure against, you can then work closely with your suppliers to only deliver the stocks or materials needed to service the forecast volume.

You need to implement a solid management control system to provide frequent checks and balances, and monitor the situation closely enough to avoid a stock out situation. You don’t want to be letting clients down, but at the same time, you don’t want to be left with stock (especially perishables) on your shelves, tying up cash, and potentially drying up your cash flow.

The third, and possibly the most important step, is to monitor when things go wrong, have your team note down or report on the reasons; how much product, or how many clients were affected; & how the problem could be avoided.  Even better, give them the autonomy and power to resolve the problem as it happens.  There’ll be more detail on this in the next Blog on “First Time Quality”.

Regular team meetings, and feedback reviews are the key to continuously evolving and improving on your existing model.  Get sacred time scheduled in yours and their calendars to guarantee these are held regularly – without fail.

The next blog in this series will focus on the fourth Principal of Lean – Jidoka, First Time Quality – the practice of ensuring that quality is achieved, not as an overlay, but as part of the daily culture.  Ensure your teams are empowered to resolve problems as they occur, and as close to the source as possible, termed by the Japanese as Jidoka – “automation with human intelligence”.

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Are your manual processes a barrier towards greater productivity?  Do you engage and empower your teams to strip away waste & inefficiency?  Do your staff embrace continuous improvement as the norm?

My 5 blog series for business owners and leaders, will focus your efforts to emerge renewed and reenergized after lockdown

Principle 2 – Eliminate Waste

Olympic swimmers work tirelessly to perfect their stroke, their breathing, even the milligrams of unnecessary weight in their costumes, caps and goggles.  They are perfecting their streamline shape and limb positioning to achieve the highest possible speed, with the minimum possible friction and energy expenditure in every stroke. The difference between gold and silver can sometimes be in 1000’s of a second, but it’s the difference between winning or losing.  The second principle of lean is to eliminate waste and activities that don’t add value to the end product.

By way of example, during my consulting days, I visited a food production facility whilst a line change was in progress. The workers were being rounded up by the supervisor and all dawdling over to the next line. There was no sense of urgency to get production in full swing.

The supervisor spent 20 minutes rounding up the team and mobilising them from one station to the next. The raw materials weren’t ready for start-up, and the supervisor was running round like a headless chicken trying to get everything in place. The eight people, and half hour late start cost the business 4 hours of wages, to change lines.

The manager explained they prefer to do overtime during the week than put on whole extra shifts on a weekend. This is a perfect example where the Lean principal to eliminate waste would be to improve the supervision, and line set-up to reduce or eliminate the overtime all together.  If we add into the mix, the profit margin of the additional volume of product they could produce in an extra half hour of production every day, that begins to add up to a significant loss in revenue and profits every year.

In a lean environment, this demonstrates so many areas to improve.  The waste might be eliminated so that the operators never have to walk across the production rooms to different lines; maybe a trolley makes the rounds ensuring the required raw materials are ready and waiting for the crew so they’re never left waiting to start the line.

“Lean thinking is a relentless quest to do more with less;

the continuous mindfulness and effort of everyone in the

business to eliminate all activities and costs that don’t

add value to the end product or service, that customers

would be willing to pay for”

Take the Waste Challenge

There are many categories of waste that can be explored in most businesses.  Toyota created 8 key areas. Take the waste challenge, and see how many of these you can start to eliminate in your own processes.

1. Over production

Producing more than you need is costing you time, materials, effort and cash sitting on the shelf if the products are waiting to be sold. The principal of regulating production based on demand expands on this idea.

2. Waiting Time

As we saw in the food production line above, if the work isn’t balanced and coordinated you could find idle time in the work flow. Working on an automated welding line in the USA, one of the key productivity savings we achieved was through slowing the line down to help operators achieve better quality and greater output. 

3. Work Flow & Movement

How do files, documents, materials or parts make their way round the workplace?  Are employees waiting for their work, or are they a bottleneck?  If one team is seen to be slacking whilst another is sweating to get the work done, this can cause resentment and conflict between departments.  A flexible workforce allows you to move people between work stations to avoid bottlenecks.

4. Over processing

How many times does that piece of paper get shuffled on the desk, or between staff & departments? How many times do parts or materials get shunted from one place to another due to lack of space or poor organisation and layout?  Duplication in handling not only increases the possibility of errors, poor quality, or damaged goods, but slows down the output of your teams.

5.  Inventory

Keeping excessive stock means money on the shelf has not been recovered in a sales invoice.  If the right information systems, and mechanisms are put in place a ‘just in time’ process can reduce the levels of stock on the shelves, keeps your cash in the bank and reduced the amount of space you need, so you could be reducing rent or premises costs.

6.  Repetitive Movement

Repetitive or unnecessary movement leads to a deterioration in performance. and in a physically demanding environment can also result in repetitive strain injuries leading to time off work. How far and how often do your team have to walk to the photocopier/printer?   That all adds to your cost and potentially a deterioration in employee motivation and engagement.  

7.  Defects

If work has to be corrected, or faulty parts are rejected the costs add up these are not reported, monitored and corrected timeously.  The same case study mentioned above, of the automated welding line, highlighted how quality deteriorated due to hidden issues causing productivity to be only half of the potential realised once the issues were analysed, measured and rectified.

8.  Unused Brain Power

If you’re not harnessing the creativity and ideas of your team, you could be missing opportunities.  By involving individual team members, getting to know their real skills and capabilities, or stretching them to try things they may perceive they’re not capable of, you’ll gradually get to know them better and understand how you can give them the opportunity to really demonstrate their true worth. 

The next blog in this series, will focus on the third Principal of Lean – regulating your throughput to demand.  This will review the most efficient arrangement of all the value creating steps in your value stream, and strive to synchronise your production or service offering, based on client demand.  

The post LEAN PRINCIPLES FOR SME’s Principle 2 – Eliminate Waste appeared first on Alluxi Consulting.

Are your manual processes a barrier towards greater productivity?  Do you engage and empower your teams to strip away waste & inefficiency?  Do your staff embrace continuous improvement as the norm?

My 5 blog series for business owners and leaders, will focus your efforts to emerge renewed and reenergized after lockdown

Principle 1 – The Lean Value Stream

As a business owner or manager, have you ever created a tangible, real life map of how you deliver your product or service to your consumers?  The impact of seeing the A-Z of your business in one place can be hugely powerful, and it’s the only way to get into the detail, and examine where the value lies in your delivery.

You may be shocked at the reaction of the team when they see how their own role actually drives one small cog in the larger engine.  They can see the importance of what they do in the greater scheme of things.  It’s a motivational exercise if nothing else.

Process Mapping – Do it the old fashioned Way

Charles Handy, a guru and thought leader in the field of management, recently wrote that the old fashioned business process mapping on brown paper is a thing of the past.  I tend to disagree, despite Mr. Handy’s prominence in the field of business.  I’ve successfully used brown paper mapping to engage the whole team in identifying how they deliver their product or service to their client.

Lots of brain storming and critiquing with big red marker pens, can break down the barriers between teams or departments.  When presented and managed in the right way,  it gets the business juices flowing, opens up discussion, and gets ideas out in the open, that may otherwise never have come to light.

One of my key mantras is “The price of light, is greater than the cost of darkness” (Arthur Nielsen!).  You’ll never know if there is a better, less costly way of doing things, if you don’t give the people working in the detail, the opportunity to say how things could be better.  The existing method could be costing you a lot of money if left unchallenged.

Lean environments are created by first looking at the big picture, your A-Z of delivering to your customers. That is all the steps involved from the time you receive an order to the point of delivery – the end to end timeline. This is called the Value Stream – as the characteristics of each step of your service, or part of your product, should make it worth paying for by the customer.  Each step in the value stream must contribute to the final product.

There may be different functional groups, departments and administration teams involved, but the performance measurements you choose should be based on the end-to-end performance of the entire value stream.  Not compartmentalized, which invariably contributes to waste and inefficiencies creeping into your overall value.

The biggest challenge in managing the value stream, is confronting and reviewing the “island” mentality between departments, each of which will probably have their own manager, employees, budget and KPI’s.  The people working at different stages of your existing process may have little or no interaction with those involved in the next stage, even though they have a shared role in creating the customer satisfaction.  

The consequence of this structure often manifests itself in a blame culture, as the work becomes imbalanced between the departments.  Backlogs may build up at one stage, if there are inadequate resources in the next.  This makes it difficult to visualize and manage the value stream as a whole.

Focus on the client journey

To be Lean, your business steps and stages would be better grouped around delivering service or product families, geared towards a particular type of customer need.  Each family would have a value stream manager, responsible for the entire A-Z of that service from order to delivery.  Often this may have a dedicated team, equipment or even physical or geographical location within the business.

To give an analogy, the company streams would be organised horizontally by product or service type (off the shelf, hybrid, bespoke), rather than vertically by function type (sales, operations, finance, logistics).

This model certainly requires a massive shift in the mindset of the business owner, management and front line teams, but as the Japanese giants that originally developed the Lean principles have proven, a Value Stream based organisation, can make significant improvements in its profitability, and client satisfaction.   

So, roll out the brown paper, get your highlighter pens, get a team day in the diary and get the ball rolling.  Once you’ve got your Value Streams mapped out, in my next blog we’ll move onto how to eliminate waste – the ongoing effort to eradicate those activities and costs that don’t contribute value that customers would be willing to pay for.

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