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Transforming organisational performance
The private sector
A company manufacturing supermarket refrigeration units found itself in
dire financial straits. In an increasingly price led market, they were
struggling with high staff turnover and sickness, low production levels,
poor quality control and dissatisfied customers. No matter how hard the
management pushed, the demoralised staff failed to hit the ambitious
targets imperative for the companys survival.
The Human Dimension challenged the do as you are told culture and
introduced a management style that encouraged dialogue and rewarded
initiative. Three programmes brought shop-floor team leaders and managers
together to learn new leadership skills, and explore ways to empower
themselves and their people.
Outcomes
Team leaders made forty-five practical suggestions to improve production
methods
Work flows became more streamlined
Problems were documented and fed back for improvement, not blame
Further production improvements were implemented across sections and at
all levels
As a consequence, productivity rocketed, from 0.85 completed units/hour
to over two units/hour a leap of no less than 250%
And customer satisfaction soared.
The public sector
A Local Authority Environment Department was underperforming, and its
managers were under considerable stress. They felt they lacked resources
and time, and some of their team members were on long term sickness
absence with stress.
We designed and delivered a programme to help seven managers, nominally
about dealing with stress at work, but with Psychological Fitness at its
core. At a review day, participants said they were remotivated and had
reenergised their teams by sharing their new understanding about
psychological fitness. As a result, new solutions were found to greatly
enhance the performance of their teams and the Department.
Outcomes
A difficult person who had caused problems for years was confronted
successfully
Sickness levels in team went down; for example, a person who had been
off for work for over 100 days was now back (sickness costs over £2000 per
day per employee)
Street traders who were causing constant problems were tackled and an
income generation scheme introduced
A backlog of 6000 parking cases which had existed for years and resisted
all attempts to clear up was successfully tackled. As a result, the
backlog was cleared up in seven weeks and a minimum of £300,000 recovered
with a complaint level of less than half a percent.
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